MEDICAL ETHICS HISTORY IN IRAN

Medical ethics has a long history worldwide, and the move towards a trans-cultural ethics must be based on an appreciation of the civilizations’ history. It is often thought that medical ethics history has begun by Hippocrates, however it is much older. It is clear that various cultures such as Babylonia, ancient Egypt, Greece, and the Persians have attempted to regulate medicine and to protect patient's rights in the known ancient world. One of the earliest written provisions in this field, which comes back to about 1750 BC, is the code of Hammurabi written by Babylonian. In this paper we aimed to explore the roots of medical ethics in Persian history, particularly, after adherence of Iranians to Islam. In this article, we used related books of great Iranian and non-Iranian historians, and examined some authentic articles collected through searches of databases such as Medline and Ovid and search engines such as Google Scholar. History of medicine in Iran has begun about fourth century BCE. Great Iranian physicians had paid special attention to ethics in their practices, teachings and manuscripts. There was a gap between the ancient civilizations and the Renaissance era in Europe, commonly called the dark ages (Medieval). The immense strides have been made by the Persians in that long interval which is briefly reviewed.