Tārīkh-i pizishkī i.e., Medical History

Background and Aim: Terrorism comes in many forms and methods. A new and very complex type is bioterrorism, which means the use of biological weapons for mass murder. The increasing development of these weapons and their enormous dangers have also increased the need to examine the dimensions and legal solutions to combat them. For this reason, the present study aims to examine the historical course of bioterrorism, to provide solutions to combat it. The question that arises is: In terms of historical developments, what are the solutions to counter bioterrorism?

Materials and Methods: The type of study is a review, the sources used include documents, historical, legal ,and political books, articles ,and research related to the research topic that has been reviewed in a descriptive-analytical manner.

Findings: The reliance of bioterrorism on modern knowledge and science means adopting codified scientific and legal strategies to deal with it. Also, from an international perspective, international law should focus on recognizing and presenting examples of bioterrorist practices. Preventing the internationalization of bioterrorism threats, adopting severe crimes, identifying and introducing bioterrorism users, and closely monitoring laboratory and scientific facilities are some of the strategies that can minimize bioterrorism threats.

Conclusion: Bioterrorism is a real and global threat. In the first place, it is important to prevent the occurrence of bioterrorist threats and then break their chains to minimize the resulting threats. Also, after the occurrence of bioterrorist threats, we need a global crackdown on its users. Therefore, the necessary criminal laws as well as the supervision of scientific and laboratory facilities are among the strategies to combat bioterrorism. International institutionalization and punishment of perpetrators provide legal and criminal support against the spread of bioterrorism.

© Copyright (2018) Medical Ethics and Law Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Background and Aim: The implementation of modernization in the country by Reza Shah Pahlavi affected various aspects of Iranian life. One of the areas that evolved following the renovation was traditional medicine. During this period, modern medicine gradually replaced traditional medicine. Only in some remote areas, due to the lack of municipal institutions, this method of medicine was common. Because providing the ground for creating change in this field and passing from traditional to modern medicine in this period was the responsibility of the municipality.

Materials and Methods: The data of this research have been collected through library resources and the research method is descriptive-analytical. This research uses the data available in various historical sources to examine the position of traditional medicine in cities and villages in the late Qajar period and early Pahlavi rule.

Findings: During this period, many developments and advances in the field of modern medicine took place in Iran. The study of the status of traditional medicine in this era, despite many advances in the field of modern medicine, can be an answer to one of the most important issues in the social history of Iran.

Conclusion: As a result of the dominance of modern medicine as the dominant method of treating diseases, traditional medicine is influenced by factors such as demagoguery, mixing with some superstitions and lack of sufficient experience, as well as the abuse of traditional Iranian physicians to maintain their interests in society and refusal to change their ways and methods stagnated.

Background and Aim: Persian Medicine (PM) has significant views on the prevention and treatment of diseases with a history of several hundred years. With the view of expansion of traditional and contemporary medicine's combined role in reinforcing the health and treatment system, it is required to review and explain the physiological and pathophysiological basis of PM. Since blood comprises of a set of four humors (Khelt), and according to the scholars of PM, balance or imbalance in the quantity and quality of these humor determines a person's health and disease; therefore, in this study, abnormal blood types that are the source of various diseases were studied from the perspective of scholars in different centuries. This work is a prerequisite for preventing and treating a wide spectrum of diseases, especially hematological, metabolic, endocrine, and even diseases of other organs.

Materials and Methods: Views of the sages regarding blood were studied in several books of Persian medicine (PM) related to different centuries and the collected material was categorized and compiled in the form of a review article.

Findings: The word “blood or dam”, before being referred to dam as a specific humor and as one of the four humors besides three other humors, was referred to as dam humor in general, and as a humor which is the basis of all humors containing proportionate amount of other three humors. Blood is divided into two types, normal and abnormal (morbid blood). Natural blood has no bad smell, red in color, sweet in taste, and moderate consistency. The sayings of the sages about abnormal blood are different and this difference can be divided into four groups. The first group, based on views of scholars like Ibn Sina and many other scholars, has stated that abnormal blood results from changes in some or all of the attributes of natural blood. The second group, including scholars like Akhavini, divides blood into three types: biliary (safravi), melancholy (sodavi) and phlegm (balghami) blood. The third group that includes views of Qasta ibn Luka Baalbek divides abnormal blood into six dimensions based on quantity and quality and the fourth group, including views of Hakim Arzani, divides the amount of abnormal blood into four categories: increase in amount, dilution, concentration and infection.

Conclusion: The conclusion of views of PM scholars about abnormal blood shows that blood is said to becomes abnormal when the balance of its composition is changed quantitatively or qualitatively, which occurs in two ways, either blood accepts changes in quality within itself and without being mixed with anything, or something from the humors or fluid (maeat) mixes with it and thus changes its properties and creates abnormal blood types.

Background and Aim: The kidney is one of the most important organs in the body that has been and is considered by Iranian physicians. People at risk for developing kidney disease should be evaluated regularly. These people are diabetes, high blood pressure, vascular disease and close relatives of people with inherited kidney disease. The purpose of this study: 1. They are introducing kidney-related diseases; 2. Preparing a list of traditional medicinal plants suitable for kidney diseases from reliable traditional medicine sources; 3. Identifying medicinal plants used in classical medicine and comparing these two sources to find more effective medicinal plants In recovering all chronic diseases, kidney disease has now become a global health problem and threat.

Materials and Methods: In this regard, two traditional and new sources have been used, such as the books of Makhzan al-Adawiyah and the calendar of Abadan, and also the scientific names of these plants have been identified from reliable sources.

Findings: In this study, the list of diseases in traditional medicine, which included terrible temper, edema, weakness, kidney stones, etc., as well as various royal, dervish, and folk remedies in traditional medicine, were introduced. Also, 54 medicinal plants of traditional medicine effective in treating kidney diseases were introduced.

Conclusion: Their exact family accompanies the medicinal plants introduced in this study and scientific name, and also the nature of 63% of the useful medicinal plants was identified as the hot and dry kidney.

Background and Aim: Iranian medical tradition is one of the native and authentic Iranian knowledge that must be noticed and applied in our era. Traditional medicine is a large part of our ancient heritage and the present generation as heirs of this frontier, has the task of preserving and recording this precious heritage. Most of the manuscripts in Persian languages are kept in libraries, and some are yet unknown. So there are some efforts for reviving these obscure medical-literary treasures. The big part of Iranian literature is mixed with extensive knowledge as medical knowledge. Almost all Persian-language poets have brief references to subjects such as medicines, diseases, and medical devices in their work. Many other works are necessarily medical works that deal with medical issues in the language of order and approach. One of the Persian works is the version of Shah Ali Suleiman's "Supplement to the Systematic", which has come to be used in a purely medical manner and following its time for public use. This manuscript is kept in the Islamic Consultative Assembly library and is now used to examine 11th-century literary medical topics.

Materials and Methods: This literary research is carried out as a desk Study and studies devotional medicine based on a manuscript named Motammem Zobdeh. Besides it, this research study about the book, the composer and his manner on stating the medical subjects with poetic language. This research aims to show the station of medicine in Persian poems.

Findings: The most notable findings of this research are introducing of the manuscript of Shah Ali Suleiman's "Motamme E Zobdeh" and his manner on medical history.

Conclusion: This paper addresses Motamme Zobdeh, a manuscript about medicine and pharmacology in Iran during the Safavi era. It initially emphasizes on conventional medicine, classical Drugs, its doses and the manner of their accretions. Already in the Persian language, medic tried to compose a book about his knowledges. The big part of Iranian literature is mixed with extensive knowledge as medical knowledge. We can now study and analyze some subjects such as medicines, diseases and medical devices in Safavi period. So we can see what the conventional medicine in that era was and how this method was.

Background and Aim: While the prohibition on the dissection of the human body in Christian and Islamic culture prevented physicians from knowing the internal organs of the human body, Greek physicians and later, Muslim doctors tried to get acquainted with the shape and function of the organs through the dissection of animals. Galen dissected the pigs, and Yuhanna ibn Masawaih and Rhazes dissected monkeys, and so, this trend continued in Islamic civilization. Muslim physicians such as Rhazes, Ali ibn Abbas and Avicenna have devoted a part of their comprehensive medical books to anatomy. Since the fourteenth century, human dissection was allowed for medical education in some European countries' hospitals and opened the way for teaching and writing books on Anatomy.

Materials and Methods: In this study, bone anatomy in two major medical encyclopedias in the Islamic civilization, Tib al-Maliki and Canon, have been compared and also the views of Ali ibn Abbas and Ibn Sina on bones are examined to show their contribution to the development of anatomy.

Conclusion: Contrary to what is thought that the prohibition of dissection in Islam has caused Muslim physicians to have little knowledge of dissection, the study of great Muslim physicians' works shows their mastery of dissection and even their disagreement in this regard. Comparing the two valuable works of medicine of the Islamic period, Tib al-Maliki and Canon, show the physicians' efforts to describe the body's bones accurately. Comparing the two works shows that the order and coherence of the contents in Tib al-Malilki work are more than Canon, and also Tib al-Maliki seems to have been compiled for medical education. Although Ibn Raban Tabari in Ferdows al-Hikma and Razi in al-Mansouri have also paid attention to the arrangement of their works, in Tib al-Maliki there is a kind of coherence throughout the book which is praiseworthy.

Background and Aim: Ancient Greece was involved in conflict and civil war from 431 to 404 BC. On one side the Peloponnesian League accompanied by Sparta, and on the other, city-states league of Athens and its allies were facing each other. Perhaps the economic, social, and cultural splendor of Athens compared to other city-states can be considered as the reason of civil war. Moreover, naval supremacy of Athens was probably one of the main factors contributing to the ignition of civil war flames in Greece. At the same time as the Peloponnesian War, Artaxerxes I of Persia (465-424 BC) succeeded Xerxes and supported Sparta. The Achaemenid emperor put the policy of disunion and discord among Greek city-states on the agenda of his foreign policy. It should be noted that the Greek civil war ended with the decisive conquest of Sparta and the surrender of the Athenians in 404 BC. This paper aims to examine the plague from 429 to 430 BC, at the time of the first phase of the Greek civil war from 431 to 421 BC.

Materials and Methods: This historical research is carried out as a desk study and studies the Peloponnesian War and its effect on the outbreak of the plague in Athens from 431 to 404 BC through histography, which is specific to natural sciences.

Findings: Plague of Athens was one of the most common diseases in Athens during the Ancient Greece and caused many casualties. In this article, various aspects of this disease are examined with the help of historical sources, New research and scientific articles.

Conclusion: Some believe that the outbreak of the plague started from Egypt while some others believe that it started from the east. In any case, the damages of this contagious and horrific disease, which wiped out a large number of Athenians, indicate the significance of this issue. The outbreak of this disease ended when Hippocrates cured it.

© Copyright (2018) Medical Ethics and Law Research Center, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.

Background and Aim: Despite the tendency to use herbs and herbal medicine, less scientific documents have been published on the problems and necessities of using these types of drugs, especially on side effects, plant health and even drug interactions.

Materials and Methods: In this study, in order to review and critique the scientific documents related to the challenges of production and consumption of medicinal plants, review studies by examining sources by exploring scientific sources from Science Direct, Google Scholar, PubMed, Magiran and SID databases. The original Gigalib Digital Library was used to prepare the original reports. The terms "herbs", "adverse effects", "side effects", "drug-herbal interactions" and "complementary medicine" were used to search between 2000 and 2018. The fundamental questions of the study were whether the medicinal plants and herbal medicines offered have the necessary health and efficiency for public consumption? And will indiscriminate use of chemical drugs increase the effectiveness of drugs or not?

Findings: Results indicated the multiplicity of scientific reports related to the medicinal and therapeutic effects of medicinal plants. Factors such as advertising, culture and dislike of chemical drugs are involved in the tendency to use them. There were numerous reports of unhealthy production and fraud in medicinal plants and lack of expertise in prescribing and medication of medicinal plants and herbal medicines.

Conclusion: The use of herbal medicines is not without risk. Conscious use of herbs and attention to their possible side effects and drug interactions is recommended. Standardization of medicinal plant production processes is also necessary to ensure part of their efficiency and safety.