Persian Gynaecology

THE history of the practice of medicine in Persia has been widely studied. Everybody knows at least by name the great clinicians Avicenna, Rhazes, and Haly Abbas. Even a few who lived after the Mongol Invasion are not unknown. The story of surgery in these regions is also better known now than it was thanks to a magnificent reproduction with miniatures in colour of Sharaf-ul-Din's translation of Abulcasis on surgery' and a recent publication by the Pergamon Press of a hitherto unknown work by an army surgeon of the seventeenth century.2 But as yet no one has studied the history of the gynaecology of those times. This is quite unreasonable because sections on diseases of women are to be found in all the big textbooks of medicine. There are even half a dozen miniatures illustrating pelvic operations in Sharaf-ul-Din's book. In my opinion what represents the textbooks of gynaecology of those days has passed unrecognized. The reason for this is that the subject of disease in women in Persian monographs was always discussed from an angle different from that of disease in men. These monographs have been neglected and overlooked by serious students, for they smack of pornography. They were read and studied largely on account of this feature. Such as have been translated into any European language have been translated solely with this in mind. To the Persians of old the sexual act was never indecent. To read and write about such things was considered no more improper than to study in detail today the menu of a smart restaurant. Both stimulate the appetite. Such anti-morality laws as from time to time were thrust upon an unwilling people, were not because fornication or adultery were considered improper but because the houses in which these were practised were usually houses where illegal alcohol was to be obtained, where unruly villains were apt to consort, and because such houses were the source of plots against the State and of disturbances to the public peace. Now, Persian literature which might today be called indecent, falls into one of three categories. First there are the classical poets, who usually wrote long poems on love and to heighten the description of the charms of the beloved from time to time introduce passages not acceptable to the modern reader. A translator of today glosses over such lines or inserts a few asterisks. They are not …