The trend of poisonings before and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has substantially affected people and healthcare systems. One of the main challenges was the reduction and change in the pattern of non-COVID-19 diseases and conditions. Moreover, due to the mental burden of the pandemic, the trend of poisonings and abuses changed. In this study, we aimed to assess the trends of poisonings from different agents before and during the COVID-19 pandemic using the interrupted time series method. This study was conducted at one of the main Tehran referral centers for poisoning, Baharloo Hospital. Pre-COVID-19 period was defined as April 2018 to January 2020 while the COVID-19 time was from February 2020 to March 2022. The total number of monthly poisoning cases in addition to eight categories of drugs/substances/agents were identified, including drugs (such as psychiatric drugs, cardiovascular drugs, and analgesics), opioids, stimulants, methanol, ethanol, cannabis, pesticides, and carbon monoxide. Interrupted time series analysis was performed to compare the pre-pandemic trend of total monthly cases from each category in addition to the proportion (%) of each one. In total, 13,020 cases were poisoned during the study period, among which 6088 belonged to the pre-pandemic period and 6932 were admitted during the COVID-19 era. There was no significant difference in terms of demographic characteristics of patients before and during the pandemic (p-value > 0.05). At the beginning of the pandemic, there was a sudden fall in the number of poisoning patients (- 77.2 cases/month, p-value = 0.003), however, there was a significant increasing trend during the COVID time (3.9 cases/month, p-value = 0.006). Most of the categories had a sharp decrease at the beginning of the pandemic except for methanol and ethanol which had increases, although not significant. Cannabis also had a significant change in slope (- 0.6 cases/month, p-value = 0.016), in addition to the sudden decrease at the beginning of the pandemic (- 10 cases/month, p-value = 0.007). Regarding the proportion of each category from total monthly poisoning cases, methanol, and ethanol had immediate rises of 4.2% per month and 10.1% per month, respectively (both significant). The pandemic had significant effects on the pattern of poisonings from different agents in Iran, the most important of which were alcohol (ethanol and methanol). These differences had policy implications that can be helpful for policymakers and healthcare systems in combating similar situations in the future.

Rhazes' pioneer viewpoints about psychiatry, neurology and neuroscience.

After the emergence of Islam and its advancement in the past three centuries in various countries and the Muslims' acquaintance with civilizations emanating from the empires of Iran, Greece, and India, a civilization emerged that affected different aspects of people's lives in Islamic lands and other countries. One of the components of this civilization was medical sciences that were collected and compiled by Muslims using the resources of other civilizations and their own experiences and resources. Rhazes (Muhammad ibn Zakaryya al-Razi), who lived in the ninth century AD (fourth century AH), compiled a comprehensive textbook of medicine (named in Arabic: Al-Hawi fi al-Tibb) in all specialized medical disciplines in accordance with the latest achievements of his era. This book has been published in the contemporary period as a 25-volume collection and contains knowledge and experiences from the medical resources of various civilizations and Rhazes' own knowledge and experiences. The first volume of this collection and some other volumes are devoted to the knowledge of neuroscience, psychiatry, and related diseases, illnesses, and disorders. In this review, we cite topics from "Al-Hawi" and other Rhazes' manuscripts related to the definition and description of diseases and disorders associated with the nervous system as well as psychiatry and neurology and compare them with modern medical sciences in a comparative manner. This is intended to make their importance and validity clear in terms of usability as part of medical history as well as for some medical research that requires historical and contextual information.