Iranian scholars share Avicenna’s medieval medical wisdom

Los Angeles, London, New Delhi, Singapore and Washington DC (October 30, 2009) – Medieval physicians had a useful medical textbook available for treating pulmonary ailments – and it was remarkably similar to one a modern doctor might use today. Iranian academics dusted off the ancient textbook the Canon of Medicine, in an article published by SAGE in Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease, sharing some of the great Persian scholar Avicenna’s writings, work that still fascinates both physicians and medical historians today.

One of the fathers of medicine, Avicenna left a wealth of information in his many works and Seyyed Mehdi Hashemi and Mohsen Raza dug deep into Avicenna’s original text, housed in the Central Library of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences in Iran, where they both work. In particular, they aimed to highlight Avicenna’s work on respiratory diseases, which may be informative and interesting to physicians and pulmonologists.

Avicenna discussed respiratory diseases in volume three of the Canon of Medicine, covering the functional anatomy and physiopathology of the pulmonary diseases that were known in his time: breathing, voice, cough and haemoptysis, internal wounds and inflammations and principles of treatments. His descriptions of the signs and symptoms of various respiratory diseases and conditions are remarkably similar to those found in modern pulmonary medicine.

The article authors also highlight the second volume of the Canon of Medicine exploring both the herbal and non-herbal treatments Avicenna recommended for respiratory diseases. Interestingly, of the 21 herbs Avicenna suggested to treat respiratory disorders, several contain bioactive compounds with analgesic, antispasmodic, bronchodilatory or antimicrobial properties. For instance, Avicenna would have prescribed opium at that time for cough and haemoptysis, a practice which today has an established therapeutic basis.

“In the time of Avicenna, the presentation of respiratory diseases, their treatment and prognosis was much different than in modern times,” says Hashemi. Medieval physicians had to rely more on history, physical examination, individual variation, environmental factors, and diet for diagnosis and treatment, which is why it’s interesting that, despite the many limitations and the lack of modern instruments in his day, many of Avicenna’s observations and approaches can be explained by modern science.

A Persian polymath, Avicenna (a widely-used Greek version of his name Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn) was a leading physician and philosopher who penned over 450 volumes, of which almost half have survived. During his lifetime (981 to 1037 AD), Avicenna was also an astronomer, chemist, geologist, logician, palaeontologist, mathematician, physicist, poet, psychologist, scientist and teacher. Canon of Medicine (al-Qanun fi al-Tibb), became a standard medical text, and was used across medieval Europe for 600 years.

“The traditional diagnosis and treatment of respiratory diseases: a description from Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine” by SM Hashemi and M Raza, published in Therapeutic Advances in Respiratory Disease, is free to access online at: http://tar.sagepub.com/cgi/rapidpdf/1753465809349254v1.

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