[Tholozan and plague in Persia]

In Persia since 1858, Tholozan studied between 1870 and 1882 the plague foci of the iranian Kurdistan which shall be dealt a century later (1947-1963) with Dr. M. Baltazard and his co-workers from the Pasteur Institute of Teheran. Tholozan had already pointed out the localization of the disease in some well defined villages and gave a good clinical description mentioning the traces of flea bites on the patients skin. One knows nowadays that wild rodents (Meriones) are the storing places of the plague bacilli in the Kurdistan. Tholozan's observations confirmed by modern ones allow to consider him a great loïmologist of modern times.

[Epidemiology and prophylaxis for cholera as seen by Tholozan]

From 1817 to 1896, the whole world was scared to death, not once but five times, by pandemic cholera. In 1849, when France is affected by the first wave of the third pandemic, Joseph, Desire Tholozan is professor Michel Levy's clinical assistant, at the Val-de-Grace hospital. From this period, Tholozan, an editor of la Gazette medicale de Paris, applies himself to specify its pathology and especially its epidemiology. He pays particularly attention to get accurate statistics and he is on cholera's tracks, as well in French towns as during Crimean' war. From 1858, as the Persian Shah's physician, he sets up a real medical department in his adopted country. Pragmatic as he is, he recommends to encourage general public health, advocates pilgrimage controls or even pilgrimage suppressions, sometimes. He always remains very doubtful towards measures imposed by International health conferences as the Constantinople's one, in 1866. And if there is any quarantine required, it must be started by natives and not by occidental physicians unaware of language and customs. His definite positions will make him disclaimed by the Shah: he is obliged to resign six months before he would die.

[Joseph Désiré Tholozan and the Persian relapsing fever]

In the year 1879, Tholozan seems to have been convinced of the danger caused by the bites of ornithodores in Persia, as a result of very careful observations of sick persons suffering from iranian relapsing fever due to Borrelia persica. Among the ticks collected by him and sent to entomologists in France was the true vector, named Argas (presently Ornithodoros) tholozani by Laboulbene and Megnin. Tholozan's contribution to our knowledge on persian relapsing fever is really important. He was one of the first to provide a good clinical description of the disease and to involve an argasid tick in its transmission. He discovered the real vector species which is now called after him.

[A great Franco-Mauritian epidemiologist: Joseph Désiré Tholozan (1820-18970]

Born in 1820 from French parents in Diego Garcia, an islet then linked to Mauritius where he started in Port-Louis his school years, Joseph Désiré Tholozan was an original personality. He undertook medical studies in France (M. D. thesis, Paris, 1843) after having joined the military Health Service (1841) as a surgeon serving in various garrisons in the country and later at the Hospital of the Valde-Grâce in Paris (1849). Successful at the "agrégation" of Medicine in 1853, he later participated to the Crimean War (1854-1855) where he performed-interesting medical observations. In 1858, he was appointed personal physician to Nasreddin Shah and remained in Persia until his death in Teheran (1897) where he is buried. Tholozan published between 1847 and 1892 over fifty articles and books dealing chiefly with infectious pathology and epidemiology, written at a time when microbial etiology and specificity of such diseases were wholly unknown. He considered chiefly bubonic plague, studying as soon as 1871 the focus of the Iranian Kurdistan, a research which will be resumed by M. Baltazard and his collaborators between 1947 and 1971, i.e. a century later. He was also deeply interested by the "oriental" cholera of which he recalled masterly the history and geography in the Near and Middle East. He also performed, while in Crimea and Persia, personal observations on tuberculosis, diptheria, remittent fever, acrodynia and had studied in France in his early years various other diseases such as cutaneous staphylococcic infections, glanders, pulmonary haemorrhagies, etc. In Persia, he reorganized Public Health and medical teaching and educated many local physicians and surgeons. Being assured of the unlimited confidence of the Shah, he played an important cultural role, promoting French influence in Persia. Holder of many French and foreign decorations, Tholozan was Fellow of the French Academies of Sciences and Medicine. His name was given by Laboulbène to Ornithodoros tholozani, a tick vector of a recurrent fever (spirochetosis due to Borrelia persica), of which he had described both the symptoms and the vector in 1882.

[Contribution of Persian physicians to the development of Islamic medicine]

In this article We have tried to reconsider the chronological appearance and influence of iranian physicians during periods before and after appearance of Islam until the penetration of contemporary medicine in Iran, e.i. up to 19th century AD. The priority has been put to mention names of scientists as well as their works and new thoughts, to expose, without exclusivity and national attitudes, part of efforts of iranian scientists in medical field. My main goal and intention was: first-to correct mistakes undertaken by some scientists who had seen books written in arabic language and so considered those scientific works as a part of arabic-islamic heritage, and second-to introduce and present iranian medical heritage of middle ages while Europe was in neglected dreams.

[The "nestorian" doctors from the VIth to the VIIIth century]

As soon as the VIth century, medicine was studied in Nisibis by the "nestorians". The studies' syllabus was approximately the same as the one of Alexandria. The town hospital allowed to put into practice the acquired knowledge. Among the doctors trained at this school, we are only acquainted with those who took part in the "nestorian" Church'life. A second school had been founded in Jundishapur. The "nestorians" held there an important place.

Hereditary inclusion body myopathy maps to chromosome 9p1-q1

Hereditary inclusion body myopathy (HIBM) is a unique disorder of unknown etiology that typically occurs in individuals of Persian Jewish descent. Distinguishing features of the disorder from other limb girdle myopathies include elderly age of onset, ethnic predisposition, and sparing of the quadriceps despite severe involvement of all other proximal leg muscles. Involved muscles demonstrate fibers with rimmed vacuoles and filamentous cytoplasmic and nuclear inclusions. Additional histological features are accumulations of beta-amyloid protein and the absence of inflammatory cells. To identify the chromosomal location of the gene responsible for HIBM, nine Persian Jewish families with HIBM were evaluated. Genomewide linkage analyses identified the recessive IBM locus on chromosome 9 band p1-q1 (maximum lod score at D9S166 = 5.32, theta = 0.0). This region contains the Friedreich's Ataxia gene, raising the possibility that HIBM may be a related neurogenic disorder.

[Persian terminology in Arabic anatomical texts]

The article explains the meaning of some Iranian technical words, which appear in anatomical Arab works. They are interesting, not only because they are nearly unknown, but also because they are evidence of the influence of Iranian culture on the rise of Arabian scientific medicine, and so an encouragement to further investigation on this subject.

Al-Adwiyah Al-Qalbiyah: introduction and commentary

Avicenna was a great scientist and philosopher of the 10th century A.D. He wrote about 456 books in various fields of learning. Al-Adwiyah Al-Qalbiyah is perhaps the most important work of Avicenna after Al-Qanun fil Tibb or canon of medicine. Like Al-Qanun, it was also very popular in Europe and was translated into Latin. It has also been translated in Turkish, Uzbbek, and later on in Persian and Urdu.

Avicenna's contribution to the development and progress of medical sciences

Avicenna was born in the village of Belkh near Bukhara in Persia. He was a very famous philosopher, wiseman and an efficient physician. He wrote more than one hundred books on all aspects and sciences known in his time i.e. philosophy, wisdom, religion, mathematics, sophism, literature, poetry and medicine. In medicine, the most celebrated of them is "Al-Qanun fil Tibb", which surpassed other similar books on medicine and considered the biggest medical encyclopaedia of his time. Those orientalists who believe in Greek medicine consider this book as the only textbook on the art of curing and recovery.