Dr. Sir Muhammad Iqbal, Vermicelli, Vienna, and Ortner syndrome. A case report in correspondence.

r. Sir Muhammad Iqbal (1877 – 1938) was a poet-philosopher of the Indian Subcontinent, born at Sialkot in Punjab (now in Pakistan). He studied and practiced law at Lahore after completing his education at the Trinity College, Cambridge and got a doctorate in Philosophy from Munich in 1907. An intellectual of international standing, a well-known philosopher, advocate of Muslim intellectual renaissance, he undoubtedly was the greatest poet of Persian and Urdu of the last century with publishing a total of eleven volumes of poetry. His books have been translated by such eminent orientalists as R.A. Nicholson, Prof. A.J. Arberry, and Annemarie Schimmel. He was awarded knighthood by the British government in 1922. In addition, he played a key role in the political scene of the British-India, presiding the Indian-Muslim League Party and provided the ideological framework for the creation of Pakistan in his address of 1930 at Allahabad, India. He participated in the Round Conferences held in London (1931 – 1932) and held the prestige of being invited to deliver the auspicious Rhodes lectures at the Oxford University, which were later published. He led an initial active legal practice and a lifelong academic commitment. He was a heavy tobacco and hookah smoker. There are accounts of frequent attacks of renal colic and gout towards his middle age. Later on, according to his son, Dr. Javed Iqbal (b. 1924) he developed a sedentary life-style partly because of the monthly scholarship from some wealthy friends but largely accounted for by his protracted illness. An excellent chronological account is provided by his remarkably extensive correspondences from the then British-India. He told Miss Farquharson, an English member of the National English League in 1933: “It would give me much pleasure to meet you again in London in April 1934 or 1935. The Oxford University has invited me to deliver the Rhodes lectures, and I have accepted.” And, in a letter, seven months later he mentioned: “Regrettably, I am still not well! I have got a History of Contemporary Medicine