BAHÁ’-UL-DOULEH and his “QUINTESSENCE OF EXPERIENCE” By CYRIL ELGOOD, M.D. LONDON, ENGLAND N 1931 the Editor of the Annals word this version does not quite fit the of Medical History did me the cap, for the contemptuous references honor of publishing my very im­ to contemporary physicians and the perfect translation of a Persian quotation from Sharaf-ul-Din Hassan, Imonograph on Atashak or Syphilis whichby ‘Imad-ul-Din says were the spoil­ ‘Imad-ul-Din Mahmud bin Mas'ud.1 ing of the work, are wanting. But that This he did because of the statement of it is the fullest description of syphilis Fonahn that the publication of the which Baha’-ul-Douleh penned is fairly pamphlet would be of great interest to certain by comparison of it with a quo­ historians of the spread of venereal dis­ tation in the Iksir-i-‘Azam.3 This last ease.2 In my preface to the translation work is a mighty four-volumed com­ I pointed out that the description of pendium of standard opinions on all ‘Imad-ul-Din was not the earliest Asi­ kinds of disease and may be presumed atic description of the disease, as a short to quote the most characteristic state­ account had already appeared in a ments of each author. All the quota­ work known as the “Tibb-i-Yusufi.” tions in the Iksir-i-‘Azam on the subject Besides, ‘Imad-ul-Din himself in the of syphilis, which are ascribed to Baha’- text of his monograph admitted that ul-Douleh, are also to be found in the an earlier writer, named Mir Baha’-ul- K h ulasa t-ul-T a j ar ib. Douleh Nurbakhsh, had already writ­ Quite apart from its immense in­ ten a brief account of that disease, terest as the earliest reference to syphilis although for various reasons that ac­ in the East, the work is of very great count was unsatisfactory. There the value as a presentation of the state of matter rested. Yusuf’s account was too medical knowledge in Persia at the end brief to be of value: Baha’-ul-Douleh’s of the fifteenth century. The book was lost to the world. combines the clinical acumen and per­ It was mere chance that a friendly sonal touches of the “Continens” of exchange of presents with a Persian Rhazes with the orderly reasoning of bookseller of Teheran put into my the “Canon” of Avicenna. It is essen­ hands a manuscript, written in 1624 tially practical, yet full of original ob­ a.d., entitled “Khulasat-ul-Tajarib,” by servations and aphorisms. It is, I ven­ this very Baha’-ul-Douleh, whom ture to think, the finest textbook of ‘Imad-ul-Din quotes. The manuscript medicine in the Persian language to be was well written, complete, and not dif­ composed after the Mongol invasion. ficult to read. About a quarter of the Nor am I alone in my views. For ‘AH way through, in Chapter 7 to be exact, Afzal Qati‘ of Qazvin, a physician of occurs the description which ‘Imad-ul- the late Safavid period, can recommend Din so slightingly quoted. Word for to his brother, just starting Medicine, only two books in the Persian language, and recounting his successful cure of the “Thesaurus” of al-Jurjanf and the an impotent man, who was enabled “Khulasat-ul-Tajarib.” The former is, through his treatment to take two wives of course, of the pre-Mongol era.4 and to have a son by each.8 Baha’-ul- It is strange that a work of such sur­ Douleh himself was a married man and passing interest should have escaped the had several children. He says that he notice of medical historians. But then experimented upon them with the vari­ medical historians are not very inter­ ous methods of curing otorrhea.9 ested in the so-called “decadent period” Baha’-ul-Douleh was born about the of Persian Medicine. Manuscripts of middle of the fifteenth century at a this work are not uncommon, though time when the Timurids were rulers sometimes catalogued under the title of of Persia and Shah Rukh had made Khulasat-ul-Hikmat and ascribed to Herat his capital. He studied Medicine Baha’-ul-Dfn.5 It was also lithographed both in Ray and in Herat under Per­ in Lucknow in 1866 a.d. under yet a sian and Indian teachers and imbibed third title, the author now being styled a great sympathy for and knowledge Baha’ ‘Abd Ullah Hakim Muhammad of Indian methods. During some part ‘Ulawi Khan. of his life he was attached to the suite Of the author extremely little is of Sultan Husayn Mirza, ruler of Herat known. The great encyclopedic work and the last of the Timurid princes.9 of Hajji Khalifa, entitled “Kashaf-ul- It was, no doubt, on the death of Sul­ Zanun,” which is usually so detailed, is tan Husayn that he returned to Ray content to dismiss him in a few lines.6 and became the leading physician of The Matrah-ul-Anzar, which is the his native city. Here he very nearly chief source of later medical biography, died of an attack of dysentery,10 and is equally brief.7 In short, we are driven here in the year 1501 a.d. he composed back to an examination of the only sur­ the only book which he is known to viving work from his hand to extract have written.11 Hajji Khalifa says that such details of his personal history, as he died in Ray in 1507. he incidentally shows. His book, the “Khulasat-ul-Tajarib” His father was Mir Qawam-ul-Din or “Quintessence of Experience,” is ex­ and was a citizen of Ray, a town close actly what the title implies. It is the to the modern Teheran, and the birth­ quintessence of a life of clinical experi­ place of the great Rhazes and the ence, a summary of the observations of Imam Fakhr-ul-Din. I am inclined to a man trained in the wide School of think that he was a doctor, both because Medicine which only Islam could pro­ it was extremely common in those days duce. His quotations show the breadth for a son to follow his father’s footsteps, of his reading. The name of Hippoc­ and also because there is found in the rates appears twelve times, of Galen text an unnamed person, whose doings thirty-seven times, of Avicenna twenty­ and sayings Baha’-ul-Douleh frequently seven times, and of Rhazes ten times. quotes with an intimate knowledge and Besides these he quotes Sabit ibn reverence, which suggests more than Qurra, Sayyid Isma’il al-Jurjani, Ibn the relationship between pupil and Baytar of Damascus, several Indians and teacher. In any event, his brother was others too numerous to mention. Only also a doctor, for he mentions him by of writers of the Western Caliphate name, calling him Shah Shams-ul-Din, does he seem to be ignorant. It is customary to speak of Arab ease. He was the first to record (as far Medicine as enjoying a Golden Age as I know) the spontaneous cure of under the early ‘Abbasid Caliphs and cutaneous leishmaniasis after twelve as beginning to sink in the eleventh months of ulceration.17 In his chapter century into a state of decadence from on eruptive fevers he describes three which it never emerged. I am inclined diseases which he says have been un­ to think that this low estimate of Per­ noticed up to his time, which, though sian national Medicine (for Arab Medi­ resembling, are neither smallpox nor cine became totally Persian after the measles. He makes one wonder whether fall of the Caliphs of Baghdad) is really he wTas not describing chickenpox, ger­ due to the fact that it has never been man measles, and the fourth disease.17 studied. The Renaissance in Europe re­ In his terminal paragraph to the chap­ moved the need of further translations ter on diseases of the eyes he is un­ of Eastern sages. Great Persian medical doubtedly describing what is now popu­ writers, such as Rashid-ul-Din, ‘Imad- larly called hay fever, which was not ul-Din, and Baha’-ul-Douleh, are still recognized in Europe until Bostock unknown in the West. Physicians have wrote his papers in 1819 and 1828 on given up learning Arabic; Persian they catarrhus estivus. never knew. Hence, the standard of I have seen many persons whose brains Persian medical speculation and surgi­ become heated in the spring by the smell cal technique in the fifteenth and six­ of red roses. They get a catarrh and a run­ teenth centuries, as revealed in such a ning at the nose. They also have an irri­ book as the “Khulasat-ul-Tajarib,” tation of the eyelids, which, when this comes as a sharp surprise to anyone season has passed, subsides together with who is wont to dismiss those centuries the catarrh and the nose-running. These as superstitious, ignorant, and deca­ people were very little benefited by the dent. treatment which I have described.18 Baha’-ul-Douleh himself must have His description of an epidemic been a keen observer. Scattered through cough, which occurred at Herat while his book are observations, which a phy­ he was there, can be nothing else but sician of today can neither accept or the earliest account of whooping cough. deny. They have never been put before This disease was not recognized in Eu­ him. Thus, Baha’-ul-Douleh asserts rope till the end of the sixteenth cen­ that stammerers never become bald,12 tury and was not described until Willis that a black and lusterless pupil in a wrote his monograph in 1658.