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NDT Advance Access originally published online on September 12, 2007
Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation 2007 22(12):3413-3421; doi:10.1093/ndt/gfm494
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© The Author [2007]. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of ERA-EDTA. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org


Diseases of the kidney in medieval Persia—the Hidayat of Al-Akawayni

Mohammad R. Ardalan1,2, Mohammadali M. Shoja1, R. Shane Tubbs3 and Garabed Eknoyan4

1Tuberculosis and Lung Disease Research center and 2Department of Nephrology, Tabriz Medical University, Tabriz, Iran, 3Department of Cell Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL and 4Renal Section, Department of Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, TX, USA

Correspondence to: Mohammadali M. Shoja, MD, Postal Code: 51738-47661, Amir Kabir Ave., Kar Pisheh Crossing, Tabriz, Iran. Email: shoja.m{at}gmail.com



  Abstract

The centralization of socioeconomic resources following the rise of the Islamic empire in the 7th century nurtured an initial gathering and translation into Arabic of extant medical texts in Greek, Syriac, Hindu and Chinese. As Arabic became the lingua franca of scholarship, there followed a second period of assimilation, original observations, commentary and systematization of medical knowledge in Arabic texts, which became the basis of revival and learned medicine in the West in the 12th century. However, not all medical texts of the period were written in Arabic. As central power eroded, provincial principalities arose, and regional cultures flourished, medical texts began to be written in local dialects, particularly in Persia. Notable amongst those and probably the oldest is the Hidayat al-Muallimin fi-al-Tibb (Learner's; guide to medicine) written by Abubakr al-Akawayni al-Bokhari in the closing decades of the 10th century. Written in Farsi and dedicated to his son and other students of medicine, the Hidayat is a relatively short and simplified pandect of medicine at the time and provides a glimpse of the teaching of medicine of the period. The present article is a translation of the sections of the Hidayat related to the kidney and urinary tract and their diseases. These early writings provide insight into the care of patients with kidney disease during the Middle Ages in general, and in Persia in particular.

Keywords: Akhawayni; history of nephrology; kidney disease history; medieval nephrology; Persian medicine

Received for publication: 22. 5.07
Accepted in revised form: 28. 6.07


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