Maimonides: physician and nephrologist

Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon) was born in 1135 in Cordoba, the son of a Jewish rabbi. After a seminomadic upbringing in Spain and North Africa during the rule of the Almohades, Maimonides settled in Fostate (Old Cairo), where he became renowned as a physician, eventually being appointed as court physician to Saladin and his son. Maimonides wrote both religious and medical treatises, the latter including the Medical Aphorisms of Moses in which he deals with almost all aspects of health and disease. His aphorisms on urine and the kidney were influenced by Galen, to whose contributions he added new dimensions. His aphorisms dealt with a variety of renal diseases recognized today.