Persian contribution to Unani medicine a review

ABSTRACT

The Middle Ages of European history roughly correspond to the [Golden age] of Arab civilization. When Europe was passing through Dark Ages, the Arabs contributed significantly to the rest of the civilization. They translated the Greco-Roman medical literature into Arabic and helped to preserve the ancient knowledge and developed their own system of medicine known as Unani system of medicine. Leaders in the Arabic Medicine were the Persians. Persia encouraged and developed physicians and philosophers of Unani medicine. They further developed this medicine into a complete science and it got deep root in the masses. Persian city of Jundishapur served as an intellectual magnet for Muslim scholars and provided a uniquely tolerant and peaceful meeting point for the philosophical and medical traditions of the Persian, Greek, Indian, Zoroastrian and Nestorian. The hospital at Jundishapur seems to have functioned as a medical school. The scholars at Jundishapur carried out the monumental task of assembling and translating Greek texts including those of Hippocrates and Galen into Syriac, which was then the language of university. Many of the Greek texts were eventually translated into Arabic from these Syrian editions. Eminent physicians of this period are - Ibn Raban Tabari [810-895 A.D.], Abu Bakr Zakariya al-Razi [865-925 A.D.], Ibn Sina [980-1037 A.D.] etc. They were eminent scholars, great philosophers, physicians and intellectual prodigies of this period. Avicenna gave a final shape to Unani system of medicine and redefined many concepts based on his clinical experiences. Ibn Sina wrote books in Persian later in his life like Risala-e-joodia, Al-Biruni, the great propounder of Arabic language had to turn to Persian often, Omar Khayyam, a great mathematician, Firdausi, writer -of Shahnama, Arzani, Gilani, Mohammed Azam Khan and Sharif Khan, all made real contribution to Tibb via Persian