Knowledge of anatomy in medieval Islam was firmly based on the anatomical writings by the 2nd-century Greek physician Galen, who to a large extent argued from analogy with animal structures. All the major Arabic and Persian medical encyclopedias had sections on anatomy, summarizing the Galenic anatomical concepts. These were occasionally illustrated with schematic diagrams of the eye or the cranial sutures or the bones of the upper jaw. No full-page anatomical illustrations of the body are preserved from the Islamic world before those which accompanied the Persian treatise composed by Mansur ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Yusuf ibn Ilyas, descended from a Iran family of scholars and physicians. His illustrated treatise, often called `Mansur's Anatomy,' was dedicated to a grandson of Timur (Tamerlane) who ruled the province of Fars from 1394 to 1409 (797-811 H). It consists of an introduction followed by 5 chapters on the 5 `systems' of the body: bones, nerves, muscles, veins and arteries, each illustrated with a full-page diagram. A concluding section on compound organs, such as the heart and brain, and on the formation of the fetus, was illustrated with a diagram showing a pregnant woman. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/Images/1200_pixels/p181b.jpg http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/Images/1200_pixels/p1812b.jpg http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/Images/1200_pixels/p1820a.jpg http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/Images/1200_pixels/p1825b.jpg
