Ancient Prescriptions at Amol History Museum

The History Museum in Amol, Mazandaran Province, has set up an exhibition of old drawings and manuscripts from medieval and ancient Greek schools of medicine.

Titled ‘Healing House’ (in Persian: ‘Shafa-Khaneh’), the exhibition features 68 prescriptions and illustrations of medicinal plants from the medical codices written by the physicians of Unani medicine, based on the teachings of the Greek physicians Hippocrates (460-375 BC) and Galen (129-216 AD), IRNA reported.

A considerable number of the prescriptions on display reveal the influence of  ‘Cannon of Medicine’ and ‘Book of Healing,’ two famous books by Iranian polymath and physician Avicenna (980-1037) who was the last major contributor to Unani medicine, also spelled as Yunani, which is based on the classical four humors: phlegm (balgham), blood (dam), yellow bile (safra) and black bile (sauda).

With respect to medicine, 40 works by Avicenna have survived. Due largely to  his exhaustive studies, his medical oeuvre contains a vast number of descriptions and prescription of herbs and medicinal plants, including those on display at the Amol exhibition: viola, thyme, St John’s wort and aspend or harmel among others.

‘Healing House’ is among the outcomes of an exchange program between Amol’s Museum of History and Malek National Library Museum in Tehran, one of the biggest libraries of precious manuscripts in Iran.

The exhibition opened Tuesday and will run through August 3. Visiting hours are from 8 am-7 pm. The museum is located on Imam Reza Street. It is home to  archaeological and anthropological artifacts as well as historical documents from Mazandaran and Iran.