Ibn al-Nafis & The Discovery of Pulmonary Blood Circulation: Correcting Galenic Ventricular Pores in 1242 CE

The Damascus Polymath Who Overturned Galenic Cardiology

For more than a thousand years, European and Middle Eastern medicine accepted Galen’s doctrine that venous blood flowed directly from the right ventricle of the heart to the left ventricle through invisible microscopic pores in the interventricular septum. In 1242 CE, Damascus-born physician Ibn al-Nafis (1213–1288 CE), working at the Al-Mansuri Hospital in Cairo, boldly declared this anatomical dogma impossible.

1. Sharh Tashrih al-Qanun (Commentary on the Anatomy of the Canon)

In his anatomical commentary on Ibn Sina\'s work, Ibn al-Nafis correctly described the pulmonary transit of blood:

"The blood from the right chamber of the heart must arrive at the left chamber, but there is no direct pathway between them. The thick septum of the heart is not perforated... The blood from the right chamber must flow through the pulmonary artery to the lungs, spread through its substances, be mingled with air, pass through the pulmonary vein, and reach the left chamber."

2. Historical Rediscovery

Ibn al-Nafis's description of pulmonary transit preceded European anatomists Michael Servetus (1553), Realdo Colombo (1559), and William Harvey (1628) by more than three centuries, marking the true dawn of hemodynamic physiology.

3. References & Historical Citations

• Haddad, S. I., & Khairallah, A. A. (1936). A forgotten chapter in the history of the circulation of the blood: The discovery by Ibn an-Nafis. Annals of Surgery, 104(1), 1-8. [PubMed: 17856795]
• West, J. B. (2008). Ibn al-Nafis, the pulmonary circulation, and the Islamic Golden Age. Journal of Applied Physiology, 105(6), 1877-1880. [PubMed: 18845773]

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