Vitiligo Treatment in Ancient Iranian Medicine

Vitiligo is a common disorder of skin pigmentation. White spots of the skin are due to loss of melanocytes production (1). Multiple causes have been indicated for this issue by the researchers’ with the autoimmunity as the major one (2). The definitive treatment has not been provided so far. Over the past centuries, plants found in the natural habitat of Iran have thus played an important role in ancient Iranian medical texts. Some main methods of treatment for vitiligo, found in these texts, as mentioned bellow. Avicenna (Ibn Sina, 10 -11 AD), the famous Iranian physician, in his book Canon of Medicine (3), the physician Seyyed Mohammd Hossein Aghili Khorasani-e Shirazi (17-18 century AD) in Makhzan ol-Advieh (4) Store house of Medicaments and also seyyed Mohammad Mumen-e Tonekaboni (17 century AD) in Tohfat alMumenin (5), in this regard wrote: “the plant Acorus calamus (Sweet scented flag) is very useful in vitiligo treatment”.In another book (6) also compiled the ancient and traditional methods for treatment of some diseases including Vitiligo (Table 1). Besides, other physician compiled the ancient methods (related to 7 AD) for treatment of Vitiligo (Daeratolmarefe ahle beittibbe jameh imam ali) (7): fresh leaves of juglans regia 50g with a liter drinking water boiled and filtered. After, the skin is washed with the solution several times a day, until the repigmentation is achieved.