Old Remedies for Epilepsy: Avicenna's Medicine

The history of epilepsy and its treatments dates back to at least 4 millennia. Avicenna, c. 980 AD in Bukhara, Khorasan – 1037 in Hamedan was a Persian-speaking Iranian physician, who has many recommendations and suggested various therapies for epilepsy in his book, The Canon of Medicine.. We first reviewed the most important ancient treatments for epilepsy mentioned by Avicenna and considered those as the key words for our next step. Then, we made a literature search (medline and scopus) with those key words to find out new scientific findings in modern medicine about the Avicenna’s suggestions.. Among the Avicenna’s recommended therapies for epilepsy, only Rue has been tested for anticonvulsant activities in modern medicine. Interestingly, it had a dose dependent anticonvulsant effect.. It is worthwhile to consider the Avicenna’s recommended therapies for epilepsy and to design future scientific studies based on his suggestions.