Editing Abu Bakr al-Razi (section)

===Ethics of medicine===
On a professional level, al-Razi introduced many practical, progressive, medical and psychological ideas. He attacked [[charlatan]]s and fake doctors who roamed the cities and countryside selling their [[Patent medicine|nostrums]] and "cures". At the same time, he warned that even highly educated doctors did not have the answers to all medical problems and could not cure all sicknesses or heal every disease, which was humanly speaking impossible. To become more useful in their services and truer to their calling, al-Razi advised practitioners to keep up with advanced knowledge by continually studying medical books and exposing themselves to new information. He made a distinction between curable and incurable diseases. Pertaining to the latter, he commented that in the case of advanced cases of cancer and [[leprosy]] the physician should not be blamed when he could not cure them. To add a humorous note, al-Razi felt great pity for physicians who took care for the well being of princes, nobility, and women, because they did not obey the doctor's orders to restrict their diet or get medical treatment, thus making it most difficult being their physician.

He also wrote the following on [[medical ethics]]:
{{blockquote|sign=|source=|The doctor's aim is to do good, even to our enemies, so much more to our friends, and my profession forbids us to do harm to our kindred, as it is instituted for the benefit and welfare of the human race, and God imposed on physicians the oath not to compose mortiferous remedies.<ref>[http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=570 Islamic Science, the Scholar and Ethics] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070922222605/http://muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=570 |date=22 September 2007 }}, Foundation for Science Technology and Civilisation.</ref>}}

[[File:Al-Razi book illumination, Torino D.I.14.jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|Doctor performing [[uroscopy]] (from a Latin translation of a work by al-Razi, 1466)]]