The Quality of Investigating Pharmacological Effects of Drugs in the Book Mofradat Al-Qanon fi l-Tib"

Avicenna was particularly interested in identification of drug effects on human body, whichis the subject of medical pharmacology. In the second book of “Al-Qanun fi’l-tib” (theCanon of Medicine), which is on the components of drugs and pharmacological evaluationof drugs, Avicenna addressed identification of drug effects through experimental andcomparative methods in details. He believed in animal and human experiments forconfirmation of the effects of a drug. However, he considered human and clinicalexperiments as the final criterion for confirmation of a drug effect. This is what is known as clinical trial in modern pharmacology. He proposed a number of conditions for validity ofbasic and clinical experiments, which show the discernment of this great scientist.While respecting the ideas of other scientists and quoting from them, Avicenna preferred the results of experiments and followed the truth when observed conflicts between the ideas of scientists and the observations of accurate experiments. In such cases, he presented the consensus ideas and the results of his experiments evidently, honestly, and with respect. In this text, we have compared the identification of pharmacological effects of some drugs from the view points of Avicenna and some modern medical textbooks.