History of medicine
Constantinople stood out as a center of medicine during the Middle Ages.  Islamic medicine grew at the same time, as Greek medical works were translated into Arabic.  The Persian polymath Avicenna has been called the "father of medicine".   The first Islamic Hospital opened in  805 CE by the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid in Baghdad.  Muslim hospitals developed into centres of teaching and research from the 16th century. They had  separate wards for male and female patients, pharmacies, medical record-keeping, sanitation and hygiene. Their ideas spread into Europe.   After 400 CE, the study and practice of medicine in the Western Roman Empire had gone into deep decline. There were thousands of monastic hospitals in Europe, but the care was poor and mainly palliative.