Abu al-Qasim Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili (Arabic:عمار الموصلي) was an important eleventh-centuryArabMuslimophthalmologist. Despite little being known about his life or education, he has been described as the most original of allArab oculists.[1]
As hisnisba indicates, Ammar was born inMosul, and later moved toEgypt, where he settled during the reign of theFatimid caliphal-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, to whom he wrote his only composition,Kitāb al-muntakhab fī ilm al-ayn (“The book of choice in ophthalmology”).
He is mostly known for the invention of ahypodermic syringe, which he used to removecataracts, a major cause of blindness.[2]
Regarding his invention he wrote the following:
Then I constructed the hollow needle, but I did not operate with it on anybody at all, before I came toTiberias. There came a man for an operation who told me: Do as you like with me, only I cannot lie on my back. Then I operated on him with the hollow needle and extracted the cataract; and he saw immediately and did not need to lie, but slept as he liked. Only I bandaged his eye for seven days. With this needle nobody preceded me. I have done many operations with it in Egypt.[3]
He was a contemporary of the famous oculistAli ibn Isa.
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