Kanon je podijeljen u pet knjiga, uključujući medicinsku terapiju, s popisanih 760 lijekova. Knjige su:
Knjiga I:
Dio 1 :Medicinski instituti: Definicija medicine, njezina zadaća, njezin odnos prema filozofiji.
Elementi, sokovi i temperamenti. Organi i njihove funkcije.
Dio 2 : Uzroci i simptomi bolesti.
Dio 3: Opća dijetetika i profilaksa.
Dio 4: Opća terapija.
Knjiga II: O jednostavnim lijekovima i njihovom djelovanju.
Knjiga III: Bolesti mozga, oka, uha, grla i usne šupljine, dišnih organa, srca, dojke, želuca, jetre, slezene, crijeva, bubrega i spolnih organa.
Knjiga VI:
Dio 1: O groznici.
Dio 2: Simptomi i prognoza.
Dio3 : O sedimentima.
Dio 4: O ranama.
Dio 5: O dislokacijama.
Dio 6: O otrovima i kozmetici.
Knjiga V: O spravljanju lijekova.
Knjiga 2 (Materia Medica) Kanona abecednim redom navodi oko 800 “jednostavnih” medicinskih supstanci koje su se koristile u to vrijeme. Tvari su jednostavne u smislu da nisu spojene s drugim tvarima.
Prvi dio daje opća pravila o lijekovima i raspravu o onome što se nazivalo “znanost o moćima lijekova”.
Drugi dio je popis od 800 jednostavnih biljnih, mineralnih i životinjskih tvari. Svaki unos sadrži naziv tvari, njezine kriterije dobrote (koji ponekad opisuju kako se tvar nalazi u prirodi) i njezinu prirodu ili primarne kvalitete. Slijedi popis jedne ili više od 22 moguće opće radnje, nakon čega slijede specifična
svojstva navedena prema mreži od 11 vrsta bolesti. Na kraju su navedene potencijalne zamjene za tvari.
Kanon sadrži sedam pravila za eksperimentiranje s novim lijekovima, djelomično preuzetih od Galena.
1. “Lijek mora biti bez ikakve stečene kvalitete”; na primjer od izlaganja toplini ili hladnoći ili skladištenja u neposrednoj blizini drugih tvari.
2. “Eksperiment se mora provesti u jednom, a ne u složenom stanju”; drugim riječima, ne bi se trebao testirati na pacijentu koji ima složene ili višestruke bolesti.
3. “Lijek se mora testirati na dva suprotna uvjeta”; lijek može djelovati izravno na bolest, ali također može biti učinkovit protiv druge bolesti ublažavanjem njenih simptoma.
4. “Kvaliteta lijeka mora odgovarati snazi bolesti…najbolje je prvo eksperimentirati koristeći najslabiju [dozu], a zatim je postupno povećavati dok ne saznate snagu lijeka, ne ostavljajući mjesta sumnji.”
5. “Treba uzeti u obzir vrijeme potrebno da lijek počne djelovati. Ako lijek ima trenutni učinak, to pokazuje da je djelovao protiv same bolesti.”
6. “Učinak lijeka trebao bi biti isti u svim slučajevima ili, barem, u većini. Ako to nije slučaj, učinak je onda slučajan, jer stvari koje se prirodno javljaju uvijek su ili uglavnom dosljedne.”
7. “Trebalo bi provoditi pokuse na ljudskom tijelu […] kvaliteta lijeka bi mogla značiti da bi djelovao na ljudsko tijelo drugačije od životinjskog…”
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The Canon is divided into five books, including medical therapeutics, with 760 drugs listed. The books are:
Book I:
Part 1: The Institutes of Medicine: Definition of medicine, its task, its relation to philosophy. The elements, juices, and temperaments. The organs and their functions.
Part 2: Causes and symptoms of diseases.
Part 3: General dietetics and prophylaxis.
Part 4: General Therapeutics.
Book II: On the simple medications and their actions.
Book III: The diseases of the brain, the eye, the ear, the throat and oral cavity, the respiratory organs, the heart, the breast, the stomach, the liver, the spleen, the intestine, the kidneys and the genital organs.
Book VI:
Part 1: On fevers.
Part 2: Symptoms and prognosis.
Part 3: On sediments.
Part 4: On wounds.
Part 5: On dislocations.
Part 6: On poisons and cosmetics.
Book V: On compounding of medications.
Book II (the Materia Medica) of the Canon alphabetically lists about 800 “simple” medical substances that were used at the time.
The substances are simple in the sense of not being compounded with other substances. The first part gives general rules about drugs and a treatise on what was called “the science of powers of medicines”.
The second part is a list of 800 simple floral, mineral, and animal substances.
Each entry contains the substance's name, its criteria of goodness (which sometimes describes how the substance is found in nature), and its nature or primary qualities. Next are listed one or more of 22 possible general actions, followed by specific properties listed according to a grid of 11 disease types. Finally, potential substitutes for the substances are given.
The Canon contains seven rules for experimenting with new drugs, taken partly from Galen.
1. “The drug must be free from any acquired quality”; for example from being exposed to heat
or cold or stored in close proximity to other substances.
2. “The experiment must done on a single, not a composite condition”; in other words it should
not be tested on a patient who has complex or multiple illnesses.
3. “The drug must be tested on two contrary conditions”; a drug may act directly on a disease
but also it may be effective against a different disease by relieving its symptoms.
4. “The quality of the drug must correspond to the strength of the disease…it is best to
experiment first using the weakest [dosage] and then increase it gradually until you know the
potency of the drug, leaving no room for doubt.”
5. “One should consider the time needed for the drug to take effect. If the drug has an
immediate effect, this shows that it has acted against the disease itself.”
6. “The effect of the drug should be the same in all cases or, at least, in most. If that is not the
case, the effect is then accidental, because things that occur naturally are always or mostly
consistent.”
7. “Experiments should be carried out on the human body […] the quality of the medicine might
mean that it would affect the human body differently from the animal body…„