JOURNAL OF RESEARCH ON HISTORY OF MEDICINE
Year:2012 | Volume:1 | Issue:2|Papers Count:6

Luckily the second issue of the trilingual journal of “Research in the history of medicine” is published in time, despite all the difficulties of dealing with a multicultural and unfortunately an overlooked issue. Publishing in three different languages, although rather a challenge, conveys an important prophecy; which is, trying to focus specifically and linguistically over two rather different languages once recognized as the major scientific tongues of the world. This allows many local scholars with the same mother tongue to more freely express the historic traditional medical views, which may have been otherwise dimmed after translation.

Archaeological excavations have revealed diverse medical materials of the Bronze, Neolithic, Hellenistic Ages, the Roman Empire and late ancient culture period in the territory of Georgia. These materials are rich repositories of national, spiritual and material culture kept in different museums of Georgia. To show the origin and development of medicine in Georgia, it is, primarily, crucial to investigate the history of old Georgian medicine. One way to accomplish this is through finding some evidence, such as the implements found in this region. They can testify the existence and prevalence of medicine in this region. For instance, in this region, some surgical tools and dishes for preparing or keeping drugs are found which belong to mid-second millennium B.C.; or various archaeological materials/ tools, such as blood and cosmetic tools, bone instruments, such as trephine, or even some instruments for personal hygiene, and dishes with different functions are also found in this area. The other interesting point is that in Georgia, mineral waters were used for surgical purposes, confirming relics of old bath discovered in old settlements of Dzalisa and Armazi etc. (II c. BC-VIII c. AD). In Georgia, drugstores and hospitals have long been in use. Ancient Medical textbooks (11th-12th cc.) also confirm that theoretical and practical medicine in Georgia has been amongst the pioneering practices of the time. Various deceases and surgeries, as well as certain physiological, biological, pharmacological and hygienic concepts, are widely explained in these book. There are numerous materials of medical heritage housed in different museums of Georgia which have to be analyzed and worked on systematically. They will greatly contribute to the history of Georgian as well as modern medicine.

Hospitals have a long history throughout the history of medicine. First hospitals are originated from Persia in ancient times in the Sassanid Dynasty (2nd to 6th century AD). After the advent of Islam in Persia (Iran) in 637 AD, medical knowledge and also hospitals were flourished and advanced by Persian scholars. Shiraz Azodi hospital and University was one of the important hospitals in Persia. This hospital was built under the order of Azod od-Dowleh Panah (Fana) Khusraw in 971-973 AD in Shiraz. It had a great library, belonging to the university. A number of important physicians of the time Such as Haly Abbas were in practice at this hospital. The last report about this hospital dates back to 14th century. Azodi hospital and University were valuable scientific centers in Shiraz. The status of this medical center shows the close connection between medical education and therapy.

This is obvious that man’s advancement in tropical experimental sciences is indebted to the pure imagination of the authors and researchers. The present study aims to reveal that medicine as one of the most experimental sciences is undeniably associated with literal images and imaginative implications at least in traditional medicine. This occurs due to the fact that in the ancient times, physicians, philosophers and poets were not clearly distinguished and in many cases all the three were applied in one individual. Thus, it is entirely probable that those three fields are integrated consciously or otherwise. There is an attempt in this study to compare common literal images related to some known animals usually used in authentic traditional medicine texts and show the relationship between therapeutic properties of these animals and common literal images.

Throughout the history, there have been deep cultural as well as scientific connections between Iran and India. In Medieval period, many Persian physicians immigrated to India mainly because of political and social reasons. A good example of this was Mirza Mohammad Hashem Alavi Khan Shirazi who belonged to Shiraz medical doctrine. He was born in Shiraz, but immigrated to India and was in the court of many Indian Kings. After the  invasion of India by King Nader, Alavi Khan Shirazi, along with the king, returned to Iran and was appointed as the King’s private physician. Later, he went back to India and finally died in this country.

Historically, there is a consensus that Islamic medicine followed the Persian, Greek and Egyptian medicine and that a large number of Muslim scholars were non-Arabs. It is also known that most famous Islamic physicians who took their knowledge to Arabic countries received their education in the famous and credible university of Gondishapour in Iran. Therefore, In order to develop a more comprehensive understanding of Islamic medicine, one must study both Iranian and Islamic medical sciences at the same time.The history of medical science and its development in Islamic Iran coincided with the collapse of Umayyad dynasty and the domination of Bani-Abbas. This article carries out a detailed review of physicians', written and translated manuscripts of this period to date. It also covers the history of hospitals and pharmacies of the Islamic period.