[Women's medical rights in ancient Persia]

ABSTRACT

Nowadays and throughout the history, medical rights and ethics were among the most important subjects in relation with the field of medicine. Women's medical rights including issues about sickness, sex, abortion and so on are among main branches of medical ethics. It should be stated that this matter was not investigated sufficiently about ancient Persia [since the beginning of historical period to 638 AD] up to this time. Therefore women's medical rights were studied in this research using remained ancient Iranian and non-Iranian manuscripts and also recent works conducted on this topic. Finally, the results of our survey on women's medical rights were presented, as follows 1- Women's situation in ancient Persian society and their beliefs about this. 2- Medical laws about pregnancy and pregnant women. 3- Sexual issues. 4- Women's sickness and their rights and laws related to this issue. Although, some laws were strict and unacceptable as good ones, ancient Persian society had notable laws about women and their rights compared with contemporaries