European Medicine and Physicians in Safavid Iran
Archive of SID ORIGINAL ARTICLE European Medicine and Physicians in Safavid Iran 113 Abstract Zahra Eslamifard1 Simultaneous with the establishment of the Safavid dynasty, due to the Behzad Karimi2 developments in the global and regional relations, the ground was pre- Hamed Ahansazan3, 4 pared for the expansion of Iran and Europe relations. The main reasons for this were the propagation of Christianity, the presence of the Otto- 1- Ph.D. of Theology and Islamic Stud- ies, Department of Islamic Education, man government as a common enemy of Iran and Europe, as well as Islamic Azad University, Tehran North commercial interests. These relations reached their peak during the reign Branch, Tehran, Iran of Shah Abbas I., encouraging various groups of Europeans, such as 2- Assistant professor, Iranian Studies Department, Meybod University, Mey- religious missionaries, businessmen, ambassadors, political delegations, bod, Iran tourists, etc. to come to Iran. 3- M.Sc. of History of Medical Scienc- es, Department of History of Medicine, Physicians were seen in all the mentioned groups, especially in religious School of Persian Medicine, Tehran Uni- missionaries. So, owing to their presence, medical knowledge of Euro- versity of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran pean was introduced to Iranians. The first acquaintance with medical 4- History of Medicine Network (HiMed- Net), Universal Scientific Education and profession of European was obtained at the same time as the presence Research Network (USERN), Tehran, of the Portuguese in the Persian Gulf. Syphilis, which was first entered Iran Iran from Europe in the late ninth century and was called smallpox, led Correspondence: European medicine to entering Iran.
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