History of ancient medicine in Iran
The Sassanid Empire Medicine
The Sassanid Empire in Persia (224–637 AD) ruled one of the most influential eras in world history. They with the Romans and later the Byzantines were two global powers in ancient times. Medicine was well organized in the official Sassanid system. Hospitals, medical centers, and universities were developed throughout Persia during their reign. Physicians of that time made a preliminary description of pulmonary circulation. They knew about the role of blood circulation in feeding bodily organs. They believed that blood is a factor for spreading infection because of its invisible monsters (divan). Their beliefs can be considered as the first theories on infection due to an external living factor, today known as the microbe.
Islam Medicine
Local medical attitudes were based on the words of the founder of Islam: “Make use of medical treatment, for Allah has not made a disease without appointing a remedy for it, with the exception of one disease: old age.” Early Muslim medicine drew on traditional practices from the region, some dating back to ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Babylon in the third millennium B.C. Traditional natural remedies, such as the use of honey or olive oil, and the use of suction cups (hijama) are still used today in many Islamic countries and around the world to treat ailments. Greek science became the basis for the development of Arabic medicine. The early theoretical basis of Islamic medicine drew on the Greek and Roman theory of humors, attributed to Hippocrates, writing in the fourth century B.C. The system of humors divides human fluids into four basic types: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. The balance between each one determines whether an individual is sick or well. Patients became depressed, for example, because of a surfeit of black bile. The combination, in Greek, of the words for “black,” melanin, and “bile,” khole, is the root of the word “melancholy.” Sanguine, phlegmatic, or choleric temperaments likewise suffered from an imbalance in the other humors. Health could be restored by rebalancing them with diets and purges, and explains the importance that Islamic medicine placed on hygiene and diet.
Islam Medicine
Local medical attitudes were based on the words of the founder of Islam: “Make use of medical treatment, for Allah has not made a disease without appointing a remedy for it, with the exception of one disease: old age.” Early Muslim medicine drew on traditional practices from the region, some dating back to ancient Mesopotamia and ancient Babylon in the third millennium B.C. Traditional natural remedies, such as the use of honey or olive oil, and the use of suction cups (hijama) are still used today in many Islamic countries and around the world to treat ailments. Greek science became the basis for the development of Arabic medicine. The early theoretical basis of Islamic medicine drew on the Greek and Roman theory of humors, attributed to Hippocrates, writing in the fourth century B.C. The system of humors divides human fluids into four basic types: blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. The balance between each one determines whether an individual is sick or well. Patients became depressed, for example, because of a surfeit of black bile. The combination, in Greek, of the words for “black,” melanin, and “bile,” khole, is the root of the word “melancholy.” Sanguine, phlegmatic, or choleric temperaments likewise suffered from an imbalance in the other humors. Health could be restored by rebalancing them with diets and purges, and explains the importance that Islamic medicine placed on hygiene and diet.
Islam Phsician
After the Prophet Muhammad’s death in 632, Islam expands beyond Arabia to Persia, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and North Africa. Al-Razi (Rhazes) is born in Persia. Physician, chemist, and teacher, he writes many important medical works later translated into Latin and Greek. Al Razi wrote extensively about human physiology and understood how the brain and nervous system operated muscles, and only the Islamic distaste for dissection prevented him from refining his studies in this area. Surgeon Al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis) is born in Córdoba. Inventor of many medical instruments, he writes the first illustrated surgical book. In Baghdad, Ibn Sina (Avicenna) writes the Canon of Medicine, a five-volume work encompassing all known medical knowledge of the time. Ibn Sina (Avicenna) was known in the West as “the prince of physicians.” His synthesis of Islamic medicine, al-Qanun fi'l tibb (The Canon of Medicine), was the final authority on medical matters in Europe for several centuries. Although Ibn Sina made advances in pharmacology and in clinical practice. He created a system of medicine that today we would call holistic and in which physical and psychological factors, drugs, and diet were combined in treating patients. Ibn Rushd (Averroës) is born. Philosopher, astronomer, and physician, he writes a medical encyclopedia known as the Colliget in Latin.
