History of Medical Sciences in Iran
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Iranian Journal of Pharmaceutical Research (2008), 7 (2): 93-99 Copyright © 2008 by School of Pharmacy Received: January 2008 Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and Health Services Accepted: February 2008 Review Article History of Medical Sciences in Iran Jalal Pourahmad* Faculty of Pharmacy, Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. Abstract The practice and study of medicine in Persia has a long and prolific history. The ancient Iranian medicine was combined by different medical traditions from Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, China and Greece for more than 4000 years and merged to form what became the nucleus and foundation of medical practice in the European countries in the 13th century. The Iranian academic centers like Jundishapur University (3rd century AD) were a breeding ground for the union among great scientists from different civilizations. These centers successfully followed their predecessors’ theories and greatly extended their scientific research through history. Iranian physicians during the glorious Islamic civilization had a tremendous share in the progress of medical sciences. The excellent clinical observations and physical examinations and writings of Iranian scientists such as Rhazes (Al-Razi, 865-925 AD), Haly Abbas (Ali ibn- al Abbas-al Majusi, died 994 AD), Avicenna (Abou Ali Sina, 980-1037) and Jurjan (Osmail ibn al-Husayn al-Jurjani, 110 AD) influenced all fields of medicine The new era of medicine in Iran begins with establishment of Dar-ul-funoon in 1851, which was the only center for modern medical education before the establishment of Tehran University. Following the establishment of the Tehran university school of medicine in 1934 and the return of Iranian graduates from the medical schools in Europe, much progress was made in the development and availability of trained manpower and specialized faculties in medicine. After the Islamic revolution by the growing spirit of independence inspired by the Iranian government the number of medical schools and medical students increased more than 10 times. For the 1st time in recent modern history the Iranian medical universities started to offer post-graduate specialized degrees in basic, clinical and engineering sciences. Medical sciences including pharmacy has of a medical practitioner from Neo-Assyrian a long history in Middle and Near East and period, as well as Middle Assyrian and Middle goes back to the ancientArchive Mesopotamian period Babylonian of textsSID have been published. The vast (Beginning with Sumer 3000 BC). There are majority of these tablets are prescriptions, but many cuneiform tablets from cities as ancient as there are a few series of tablets that have been Uruk (2500 BC), the city of Prophet Abraham labeled “treatises”. One of the oldest and the (PBUH). The bulk of the tablets that do largest collections is known as “Treatise of mention medical practices have survived from Medical Diagnosis and Prognoses.” The text the library of Asshurbanipal at Nineveh (668 consists of 40 tablets collected and studied BC) Assyria. So far 660 medical tablets from by the French scholar R. Labat (1). Although this library and 420 tablets from the library the oldest surviving copy of this treatise dates to around 1600 BC, the information * Corresponding author: contained in the text is an amalgamation of E-mail: [email protected] several centuries of Mesopotamian medical www.SID.ir Pourahmad J / IJPR (2008), 7 (2): 93-99 knowledge. The diagnostic treatise is organized substances used for medicinal purposes. Drugs in head to toe order with separate subsections which were taken internally included; mercury, covering convulsive disorders, gynecology and antimony, arsenic and sulfur. Animal fats were pediatrics. To the non-specialist they sound like also prescribed. All were basically the same as magic and sorcery. However, the descriptions Babylonian medicine and prescriptions (3, 4). of diseases demonstrate accurate observation At one point Darius ordered a representative skills. Virtually all expected diseases exist, to return to Egypt in order to restore the they are described and cover neurology, fevers, department of the ruined house of life dealing worms and flukes, venereal disease and skin with medicine; “ While his majesty was in Elam lesions. The medical texts are essentially he ordered me (Udjahorresne) to return to Egypt. rational, and some of the treatments (such as I gave them every useful thing and all their excessive bleeding) are essentially the same instruments indicated by the writings, as they as modern treatments for the same condition had been before. His majesty did this because he (2-4). knew the virtue of this art to make every sick The first major Iranian dynasty,Achaemenid man recover” (5). or Hakhamaneshian (550 BC), promoted The subsequent Seleucid (selukian) and the development of culture and science Parthian (Ashkanian) dynasties followed the extensively. The great scholars such as same trends with more Greek influence science the philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, the and art due to massive presence of Greeks in the Babylonian astronomer Kidinnu and even the area. However the flourishing of science and historian Herodotus were Persian subjects. The technology happened in the Sassanian period ancient cultures of the Egyptians, Babylonians, with major centers of learning and the famous Elamites, and others continued to exist and university Jundaishapur (6, 7). The Sassanian develop. Babylonian Physicians were all over king, Khosrow Anoshirvan is mentioned by many the territories and served all people including historians and biographers to have been a major Persians. Xenophon relates that when the Greek promoter of all sciences including philosophy soldiers who served under Cyrus the younger and medicine. In a Pahlavi text (Karnamag) he is passed through the territory of Babylonia, they quoted the following; “We have made inquiries found sufficient number of Physicians even in about the rules of the inhabitants of the Roman the villages to treat the wounded warriors. Texts Empire and the Indian states. We have never describe how physicians used medicine, prayers rejected anybody because of their different and magic. They would often model images of religion or origin. We have not jealously kept evil spirits out of clay and shatter them, in order away from them what we affirm. And at the same to restore the invalid to health. time we have not disdained to learn what they Achaemenid made Babylon one of their stand for. For it is a fact that to have knowledge major capitals and extensively used the texts at of the truth and of sciences and to study them is the temple libraries. The library and museum at the highest thing with which a king can adorn the Persepolis was build to rival the Babylonian himself. And the most disgraceful thing for archives famousArchive in the ancient world. Greek ofkings is toSID disdain learning and be ashamed of and Egyptian physicians were invited to join exploring the sciences. He who does not learn is the Achaemenid court and served the royal not wise” (8). household. Persians also adopted the tradition of Greek Philosophers Syriac speaking paying the physicians according to the rank and Christians and Nestorian Christians fleeing gender. The archives at Persepolis indicate that persecution by Byzantine rulers were received physicians and midwives who delivered boys by Anoshirvan and were commissioned to were paid double the amount they got when the translate Greek and Syriac texts into Pahlavi. baby delivered was a girl. The records do not Paul the Persian dedicated Works of logic to the indicate severe punishments if the sick person king. The Greek philosopher Priscianus Lydus died, as was the case under Hammurabi (3, 4). wrote a book in response to the king’s questions Texts also show lists of plants, herbs and other on a number of subjects in Aristotelian physics, 94 www.SID.ir History of Medical Sciences in Iran theory of the soul, meteorology and biology. Chinese Herbal medicine and religion. The The Sassanian religious text, Dinkard shows books were kept at the university and the royal familiarity with all these topics, especially libraries and Greek medicine based on works by Aristotelian physics. It is apparent from the text Hippocrates and Galen dominated the discipline that Aristotle’s famous article “On Coming to (11). be and Passing away” was well known by the The later Muslim historians refer to the compilers of Dinkard. Becoming, decay and Sassanian Imperial library as the House of transformation, the three fundamental concepts Knowledge (Bayt al Hikmat). The library in the article, had been mentioned and discussed. functioned as both a place where accounts of Pahlavi texts also indicate that the doctors Iranian history and literature were transcribed were paid according to the rank of the patient. and preserved. At the same time it was a place Books in medicine, astronomy, Almagest (by where qualified hired translators, bookbinders Ptolemy), Aristotle’s Organon and a number of and others worked to preserve, purchase, copy, texts in crafts and skills were translated from illustrate, write and translate books. It was Greek. Syrian Christians in particular played a such texts that made their way into the Islamic significant part in communicating Greek sciences period. Many books in sciences and philosophy and knowledge to the Persians (9, 10). were translated by the Persians, Greeks, Syriac The famous university and the hospital at and Aramaic-speaking scholars into Arabic and Jundaishapur built earlier reached its peak at eventually made their way into Muslim Spain Anoshirvan’s time. The Muslim historian Qifiti and Western Europe. Persia and Byzantium (12/13th century AD) in his book ‘History dominated the area before Islam. The later was of Learned Men’ quotes the following; “In a continuation of the Eastern Roman Empire the twentieth year of the reign of Khosrow II and the seat of Greco-Roman art, culture and (Anoshirvan) the physicians of Jundaishapur civilization.