It is probably an auspicious occasion to recognize that the preceding discussions on efficacy are not anything new, and that their very foundations were laid a thousand years ago by an amazing Persian Shia physician called Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā, or just "ibn Sina" or Avicenna.In the second volume of his famous treatise "The Canon of Medicine", he identified 7 important principles which are still valid today, and establish the foundations of modern clinical pharmacology. He writes:
“Experimentation will bring us complete understanding of the strength of drugs; however,only if the conditions below are followed.”:
"The drug must be free from any extraneous accidental quality."
"It must be used on a simple, not a composite, disease."
"The drug must be tested with two contrary types of diseases, because sometimes a drug cures one disease by Its essential qualities and another by its accidental ones."
"The quality of the drug must correspond to the strength of the disease. For example, there are some drugs whose heat is less than the coldness of certain diseases, so that they would have no effect on them."
"The time of action must be observed, so that essence and accident are not confused."
"The effect of the drug must be seen to occur constantly or in many cases, for if this did not happen, it was an accidental effect."
"The experimentation must be done with the human body, for testing a drug on a lion or a horse might not prove anything about its effect on man."
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