De La medecine et de la societe Tunisian d'histoire de la medecine et de la pharmacie

ABSTRACT

The Tunisian Medical Society of the History Medicine and Pharmacy has been founded very recently. It illustrates a new trend of our historians towards the medical sciences as well as the need of our physicians to know better the work of their predecessors. In the middle Ages [IX-X century] the Medical School of Kairouan was well known all over the Mediterranean Basin. There were prestigious names as Ishak Ibn Omran who wrote " The Treaty of Melancholia", Ishak Ibn Soleyman oculist and his bright discple Avenzoar who in his "Traveller viaticum" gives instructions to keep clear sight as long as possible and Constantin Africain who was their translator. He made their works known in Salerno and Montpellier. Tunisia was then an active center of exchange between Andalousia in the west, Cairo, Damas and Baghdad in the East. From the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries, Assoukouli generation of physicians gained experience in the use of local herbs and minerals for the treatment of their patients. At that time our literature was full of references to the health condition of our population. In mid XIX the proclamation of the Constitutional Act the Bey of Tunis gave the start to a more liberal society; thus allowing foreigners from various countries [specially France and Italy] to establish themselves in Tunisia. They brought the flavour of occidental medicine so that young Tunisian were sent to Bordeaux, Paris, Montpellier. Just before the last war, a Moslem woman succeeded to her thesis and later became head of the department of gynecology at the hospital founded in mid XVII by Aziza Othmana another devoted woman to medicine. She was probably the first lady African physician. The opening of the Medical school in 1962 led the way to a rapid development in the study of medical sciences. Teaching history of medicine in all our four faculties is the achievement of that era