Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

Writing treatise on Islah al-Adwiat (Reducing the Side-Effects of Drugs) is one of the most important issues in Islamic medicine. During the first few centuries of Islamic civilization, four important treatises were written on this subject, which established the scientific tradition that formed the bases of the subsequent pharmacological formation. This paper addresses the tradition of writing books on reducing the side-effects of purgatives and it also critically edits and translates the books written by three prominent scholars – Hubaysh b. Atham of Damascus, Qusta b. Luqa of Balbak and Muhammad Zakaria Razi – relying on the surviving manuscripts. The research objective followed by this paper is examining and analyzing the purgatives as an important class in the pharmacological and medical books of the Islamic era.
Almost all books on medicine and pharmacology written in the old medical tradition have a section or a chapter devoted to the detailed introduction of purgatives and counteracting their side effects. Examining these bits, one may trace the main structure of the tradition, which continued for many centuries. Besides, comparing them may provide an appropriate perspective to look at the history of pharmacology. To this end, images of the material included in those books were obtained from libraries and museums, which have housed such books for almost a millennium. Then they were analyzed along with translating and editing.
It may be concluded that pharmacologists belonging to the old medical paradigm would use drugs to treat conditions of bad health caused by changes in the patient’s humors; the drugs, however, would cause some side-effects along with removing humors and residues, leading to a change in the main humor of the body. The pharmacologists; therefore, introduced the drugs, their harms, as well as the best type of the drug to be used and finally suggested some methods in detail to reduce their side effects

The physicians of the Bukhtishu dynasty first entered the Abbasi court with the aim of practicing medicine; but soon after, thanks to their medical knowledge and skills, they gained a lot of power and wealth and became involved in power relations at court. Although they were able to gain a high position in the Abbasid court; but their position was constantly unstable, and sometimes they were at the peak of power and sometimes at the bottom of humiliation. Therefore, the present study, with a historical method and a descriptive-analytical approach, seeks to answer the question: what factors have been effective on the relationship between the physicians of the Bukhtishu dynasty and the Abbasid Caliphate? The claim of the research is that the need of the caliphs for treatment provided the background for the entry of the doctors of Bukhtishu dynasty to the caliphate system and strengthened their presence in the court. Factors such as the success of these physicians in medicine, the power of the caliphs in supporting them; other threats from courtiers also fluctuated the status of these physicians. The findings of the study indicate that physicians with the benefit of medical knowledge had such an effect on the caliphs that they were considered as one of the main actors in politics, so they play an important role in the removal and installation of caliphs, poisoning and killing of them. They could pave the way for their conditioned person to come to power by abandoning their treatment; they were also degraded, imprisoned, and sometimes exiled or even killed.