Journal of Research on History of Medicine
Volume:5 Issue: 3, Aug 2016

Aretaeus of Cappadokia, lived in an era when cancer was already a disease, well known for its deadly outcome. Inside his momentous treatise, composed of 8 books, he had outlined various types of cancer. He had understood cancer’s fatality and proposed some curative treatments. Our manuscript composes the fragments related to cancer, in an effort to present Aretaeus’ views on the matter. He had emphatically ignored the breast cancer, maybe due to fact that this was a malignancy type that could be operated with a strong change of survival according the medical knowledge of the era. On the other hand, various malignancies such as colon, hepatic and uterine cancer, attributed to the black bile (Humours theory), were thoroughly examined, establishing a valuable medical source for the future physicians to rely on.

Avesta is the oldest written text remained and extant from Iranian old languages. It comprises of a collection of thousands of words and expressions covering almost all fields of religion and the culture of ancient human beings. With regard to what is left of Avesta, the contents of the twenty-one Nasks (“books”) remained from the Sasanian period, and the documents existing in other books pertinent to the Middle era, it becomes evident that this old language must have been deemed significant from a scientific point of view in ancient times. The presence of words germane to the specific sciences of the past such as astronomy, medical sciences, law, economics and the like indicates that the Avestan had to enjoy the features and potentialities of a scientific language. This book, in addition to being a source narrating the principal beliefs of the ancient era, has common roots with ancient Indian and European cultures. The present study is aimed at getting a better understanding of the roots of some of the terms, relevant to the medical sciences mentioned in surviving texts of Avesta. First, the authors have chosen a few medical terms and some of the diseases referred to in Avesta. The lines and sections in which these terms and words are referred to in Avesta are presented with the line number and the name of the section they are taken from alongside with their translation. Moreover, the roots of the chosen words are examined from a derivational point in Avestan, Sanskrit, Latin, Indo-European and English, and their translations are given. Bearing in mind that no such research has been done so far in this fashion, it is hoped that the etymological analysis and dissection of these words can open a new horizon to the researchers who are interested in knowing more about the genuinely Iranian words of all the scientific areas such as Medical sciences and the sciences related to it, present in Avesta.

Not all values of literary texts should be sought for in their artistic aspects. There have been many lower-ranked literary texts that have shed light on numerous scientific, historical, social, and cultural issues. Although poetic views are involved while raising such issues, it needs to be taken into account that not all poets have perceived the scientific principles of the topics tackled in their poems. However, at times their verses can be considered as the only and most authentic sources of such kind of perception. The credible evidence supporting such a claim is the expression of medical benefits of Barsh and diamond appeared in literary and non-medical texts. Both medical and medicinal (pharmaceutical) sources have been either unclear or even faulty in regard to appreciating these benefits whereas poets have conveyed all these in their poetries. In order to completely understand them, one must deconstruct the multi-layered works of art to discover their hidden meanings. Hence, in the present paper, the writer has attempted to study prose works of literature, history, and original scientific sources to bring to light (uncover) their approaches toBarsh and diamond and their benefits in traditional medicine.

Typhoid or Hasbe has been addressed as "Motbeqe" in historical medicine books. This disease has a long history in medicine; Muhammad ibn Zakariya Razi described it for the first time. The number of Typhoid patients was limited before World War II and the occupation of Iran, but after the beginning of war and Iran’s occupation, this disease spread for both internal and external reasons. The most important external factor was the influx of Polish immigrants to Iran, for whom a variety of infectious diseases including typhoid were prevalent, transferring this disease to the Iranians in three direct, indirect and mechanical ways. The internal factor has a direct relationship with the public health problems. Safe drinking water was not available for most of the people, and a large number of Iranians did not have proper nutrition and enough ability to resist diseases especially Typhoid, which was because of the famine mainly due to the presence of allies. The government made a lot of efforts to tackle Typhoid and other diseases, and created new health facilities in most cities, but a large number of people were died of the massive outbreak of this disease, occupation of some hospitals by the allies, hoarding and scarcity of drugs. In this paper, the causes of Typhoid outbreak during the years of Iran occupation in World War II (1320-1324) are investigated through a descriptive method along with analysis and data collection of library documents.

Bahrain territory is the cradle of one of the oldest civilizations in the Middle East where Dilmun Civilization (BC 5000) once was located; it was the cultural center which granted knowledge to humanity in many subjects, especially famous for literature and religion. Still, there is lack of research on the efforts of scientists in this territory regarding practical sciences such as medicine, pharmacology and agriculture. As day by day attention to alternative medicine is drawn by both public and health officials due to World Health Organization (WHO) recommendations, it is important to define traditional medicine features in this area.This article is a historical qualitative research; its goal is to introduce traditional medicine physicians, their scientific works and features of medical practice, in addition to health status they were involved in. Academic databases were searched, besides manual search in hard materials like history books, famous biographies and manuscript indices.14 scientists were recognized who had practiced medicine or had authored in this field, seven compilations and numerous manuscripts written by them; there was a lucid relation between this area’s scientists with others in India, Persia and Iraq; they wrote their books in Arabic and Persian and believed in experimental medicine. Ultimately, we can conclude that there is evidence of innovation or ancient school of medicine exclusive to this region.This study recommends: 1. Critical text study of Bahraini compilations and discovering their features; 2. More oral history research to identify ethical, social and medical successes of this region’s practitioners and 3. Quantitative study of local knowledge about plants and their medical uses to be suggested by evidence, considering hazards and drug discovery reasons.