Ibn Zuhr was an influential 12th century physician and surgeon from Spain who made significant contributions to several fields of medicine. He was the first to describe the parasitic cause of scabies and developed a method of direct feeding. Ibn Zuhr is considered the father of experimental surgery, as he performed operations on animals and was the first to conduct human dissections and autopsies. He invented important surgical procedures like tracheotomy and used anesthesia, advancing the fields of surgery and anesthesiology. Through his works emphasizing observation and experimentation, Ibn Zuhr greatly influenced medical science for centuries in both the Eastern and Western worlds.