The surgeon Al Zahrawi could not have predicted the long history of the surgical tools he wrote about in his book, Al Tasrif Doctors and nurses now use tools like those every day in hospitals, over a thousand years after he wrote about them.In his encyclopaedia of medicine called Al Tasrif (The Method of Medicine), Al Zahrawi describes and illustrates more than 200 surgical tools, like syringes, forceps and scalpels, that he designed and that were being used at the time.He also invented the use of medicine in small parcels ready for swallowing, known 15 nowadays as 'the capsule'

The amazing thing about his descriptions is that if you were to hold up a modern surgical tool, such as a scalpel, and compare it to the ancient one described by Al Zahrawi, they would look almost identical!His 10 detailed accounts of many dental and surgical practices of his time are still used by medical students all over Europe, as they have been for centuries.5 Al Zahrawi was a famous, tenth-century Muslim surgeon who lived and worked in Cordoba.He introduced new medical procedures such as using catgut for internal stitching.Today, Al Zahrawi is known as 'the father of modern surgery'.He gives clear instructions how to use them all.