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8. Pakenham, 1991, 572. 9. Emanoel Lee. To the bitter end. London: Guild Publishing, 1985, pp.27–84. 10. De Villiers JC. Healers, helpers and hospitals a history of military medicine in the Anglo-Boer War. Volumes I and II. Pretoria: Protea Book House 2009, p.42, pp.63–73, pp.340–357. 11. Hammar J. Tidskrift i milita¨r ha¨lsova˚rd, 1900: 83. Translation from Swedish by author. 12. Letter from Josef Hammar to his father 1900-01-31 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 13. Hammar, 1901: 18. Translation from Swedish by author. 14. Hammar, 1901: 136. Translation from Swedish by author. 15. Letter from Josef Hammar to Bisse 1900-04-04 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 16. Letter from Josef Hammar to Bina 1900-02-06 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 17. Letter from Josef Hammar to his father 1900-03-17 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 18. Hammar, 1901: 86. Translation from Swedish by author.
19. Hammar, Letter to Bina. Translation from Swedish by author. 20. Hammar J. Go¨teborgs handels och sjo¨farts tidning, 12 December 1900. Translation from Swedish by author. 21. Hammar, 1901: 18. Translation from Swedish by author. 22. Hammar, 1900: 22–23. 23. Carlsson Ernst. Skolgeografi, fo¨rsta kursen. Stockholm: 1919, p.196. Translation from Swedish by author. 24. Rosenblad Jan-Gunnar and So¨derholm Gundel, Boerna, hja¨ltarna som blev skurkar. Carlsson: 2013. 25. Hammar, 1901 22. 26. Vincent J Cirillo. Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930): physician during the typhoid epidemic in the Anglo Boer war (1899–1902). Journal of Medical Biography 2013; 22: 2–8. 27. Hammar, op. cit. (Note J) 23. 28. Hammar, 1900: 22. 29. Letter from Josef Hammar to his father 1900-07-07 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 30. Letter from Josef Hammar to his father 1900-08-13 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 31. Hammar, 1900: 143. 32. Grill, 144. Translation from Swedish by author.
John Alexander Sinton, MD FRS VC (1884–1956)
Journal of Medical Biography 24(2) 196–199 ! The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0967772013479524 jmb.sagepub.com
GC Cook
Abstract Brigadier John Sinton is the only individual in history to have been both awarded the Victoria Cross and also elected to the Royal Society. He qualified at Belfast and afterwards joined the Indian Medical Service (IMS). Serving before and during the Great War (1914–18), he was first posted to the North-West Frontier province, and afterwards as a captain in the Indian Expeditionary force in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). It was there in 1916 that, shot in both arms during an engagement and under heavy gunfire, he remained steadfastly at his post; for this bravery he received the Victoria Cross. Following the war he carried out major researches into malaria in India, and became Director of the Malaria Survey of India. Both there and shortly afterwards, Sinton published about 200 papers on various aspects of malaria and leishmaniasis. In England, he later worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Ministry of Health’s laboratory at Horton, Epsom. In 1946, he was elected to the Royal Society for his researches into malaria and kala-azar, and following retirement he underwent another distinguished career in Northern Ireland. Keywords John Alexander Sinton, Victoria Cross, Fellow of the Royal Society, Mesopotamia, Great War, Malaria in India, leishmaniasis University College London, UK Corresponding author: GC Cook, 11 Old London Road, St Albans, Herts, AL1 1QE, UK.
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Cook
197
Introduction At the 49th Annual General Meeting of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene on 21 June 1956, the President (Professor RM Gordon, FRCP, 1893–1961) presented the Manson Medal (‘the highest honour [of the] Society’) to the widow of Brigadier John Alexander Sinton, VC FRS, who had died on the previous 25 March.1–4 Sinton, a dashing red-haired Northern Irishman in his earlier days, was unique in being the only Fellow of the Royal Society to be a holder of the Victoria Cross. He was born at Victoria, British Columbia on 2 December 1884, his father being a descendent of a lowland Scottish family (most of whom were Quakers) that had settled in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, some two centuries previously. The Sinton family moved from Canada to Ulster in 1890. After schooling in Belfast, he entered the Queen’s College Medical School where he was a highly successful student, graduating MB BCh BAO with First Class Honours in 1908. After house appointments at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, and also junior appointments in pathology, he joined the Indian Medical Service (IMS) in 1911. He had previously obtained the DPH of both Belfast and Cambridge (1910) and the DTM (Liverpool) in 1911. While at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, he had become acquainted with two of the pioneers of tropical medicine – Sir Ronald Ross FRS (1857–1932) and Professor JWW Stephens FRS (1865–1946).
The IMS After a brief spell as Medical Officer to an Indian regiment, Sinton opted for war service and became heavily involved in the Great War (1914–1918). Stationed at Kohat in the North-West Frontier Province, he was Regimental Medical Officer to the 31st Duke of Connaught’s Own Lancers (an Indian cavalry regiment); he was also in charge of the Brigade Laboratory. When war broke out in 1914, he was posted as a Captain in the Indian Expeditionary Force D in Mesopotamia as RMO to the 37th Dogras and other units. In an engagement at Sheikh Sa’ad in 1916, in an attempt to relieve Kut, Sinton was awarded the Victoria Cross. Shot through both arms and also his side, he declined transfer to hospital and remained at his duties under very heavy fire. Several other deeds of bravery apparently followed. For these acts he received the award. He was also awarded the Russian Order of St George. Sinton continued in other ‘theatres of war’ until 1920, mostly in the NW Frontier Province but
Figure 1. Brigadier JA Sinton MD VC FRS (Courtesy: the Army Medical Services Museum).
also in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Afghanistan and Waziristan. He was awarded an OBE (Order of The British Empire) in 1921. Following these military duties, he underwent a brief period studying sandflies (Phlebotomus spp) – the vectors of oriental sore and kala-azar – with Professors Robert Newstead (1859–1947) and John Gordon Thomson (1878–1937), at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Overall, he published 36 papers on Indian species of Phlebotomus, and became a leading authority on this group of insects.
The Malaria Survey of India In 1921, Sinton returned to India and embarked on major researches into malaria. For some years, he was in charge of the Quinine and Malaria Enquiry (financed by the Indian Research Fund) under the Indian Research Fund Association (a body established in 1910) and in 1927 he was appointed to the first Directorship of the Malaria Survey of India, a post he retained until his first retirement in 1936. He was also a member of the Malaria Commission of the League of Nations. This organisation, based at Kasauli, had several
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functions, the most important of which was to advise the Government on all issues relative to malaria in India; however, it was essentially a research organisation. Kasauli was a hill station in Punjab on the first ridge of the Himalayan foothills, with easy access to Shimla, and in close proximity to the Government of India Central Research Institute and the Pasteur Institute of India. There was in addition a treatment centre, the Cantonment Hospital, where malaria in British troops acquired in all parts of India was treated. By virtue of his position, Sinton was an ex-officio member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the India Research Fund Association and later a member of its governing body. He remained a member of the Malaria Commission of the League of Nations and was also Co-ordinating Officer for India of that body. In 1929, the Malaria Survey started its own journal – the Records of the Malaria Survey of India (now the Indian Journal of Malariology). While in India, and also after retirement, Sinton published some 200 scientific papers, most of them on malaria, including its experimental and clinical aspects. While in India, he showed that pamaquin combined with quinine led to a striking diminution in the relapse-rate of Plasmodium vivax infection. His observations on P. ovale and on the newer antimalarials including plasmoquine (pamaquin), atebrin (maloprim) and proguanil (paludrine) were made in England at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (where he was Manson Fellow) and at the Ministry of Health’s Laboratory at Horton, Epsom.
Other research studies Sinton described various ectoparasites of Anopheles. He was also the first to describe canine leishmaniasis in India and he worked on the transmission of oriental sore. The economic aspects of malaria and its cost to the world were other topics on which he wrote extensively. He wrote a well-known work on What Malaria Costs India, a highly comprehensive document. For his work on both malaria and kala-azar, he was elected FRS in 1946. He also received numerous other awards, including the Mary Kingsley Medal of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 1949.
World War II (1939–1945) Sinton was recalled to military service briefly in 1939, being on the reserve of Officers of the IMS, but on
reaching the age of retirement in April 1940 returned home and joined the Home Guard as a private! However, from June to November 1940 he was re-engaged by the RAMC as Consultant Malariologist to the East African Force and from April 1941 until April 1943 was employed by the British Government as Consulting Malariologist to the Middle East Force during which he travelled extensively in the Middle East and Africa. From March to July 1945, Sinton undertook an inspection and advisory tour of malaria conditions on the Indian Subcontinent and South-east Asia. At that time he was regarded as the foremost world authority on malaria.
Personal life Sinton married Edith Seymour Stewart Martin in 1923 in Kasauli and they had one daughter. He retired, with the courtesy title of Brigadier in 1945 to Cookstown, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland and became involved with numerous local affairs, becoming – among appointment to other offices – Pro-Chancellor of Queen’s University and President of the Queen’s University Association. He was also High Sheriff (in 1953) and Deputy Lieutenant of County Tyrone (in 1954). He devoted time to ornithology, gardening and fishing. Colonel HW Mulligan (1901–1982), with whom he worked for some 30 years, subsequently gave an account of his virtues as both a scientist and a friend. Mulligan echoed the general sentiments that he had ‘an acute and active mind’ and was in possession of ‘a charm [as well as a] natural kindness, generosity and reliability’ that endeared him to his colleagues.5–7 References and notes 1. Minutes of the 49th AGM of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 21 June 1956. . 2. Anonymous. Tropical Medicine Award. British Medical Journal 1956; i: 757. 3. Anonymous. Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. British Medical Journal 1956; i: 1554. 4. Cook, GC. Twenty-six Portland Place: the early years of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Oxford: Radcliffe Publishing, 2011: 597. 5. Christophers R. John Alexander Sinton, 1884-1956. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1956; 2: 269–290. 6. Anonymous. John Alexander Sinton, VC OBE MD DSc Belf. FRS DL. Lancet 1956; i: 390–391. 7. Anonymous. J A Sinton, VC OBE MD DSc FRS. British Medical Journal 1956; i: 806–807.
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Author biography GC Cook, MD, DSc, FRCP, FRCPE, FRACP, FLS, is currently a Visiting Professor at University College London. He has previously held Chairs of Medicine in the Universities of Zambia, Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and Papua New Guinea. He has contributed over 500 papers and several books to medical/scientific literature. See also Who’s Who.
Akhawayni (?–983 AD): A Persian neuropsychiatrist in the early medieval era (9th–12th Century AD)
Journal of Medical Biography 24(2) 199–201 ! The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0967772014525105 jmb.sagepub.com
Arman Zargaran1,2,3, Gholamreza Kordafshari4, Seyyed Rouhollah Hosseini2 and Alireza Mehdizadeh1
Abstract The early medieval era is also called the Islamic Golden Age because of the significant rise in sciences, including medicine. Abu¯ Bakr Rabi’ ibn Ahmad Akhawayni Bukha¯ri (better known as Akhawayni) was one of the notable medical practitioners in his lifetime. His fame was in neuroscience and he became known as Pezeshk-e-Divanegan (Physician to the Insane). His only surviving book, Hida¯yat al-Muta’allimin fi al-Tibb (The Students’ Handbook of Medicine), is the first medical textbook in Persian, after Islam. Akhawayni gathered and categorized available knowledge on neuropsychiatry and added his own. He was the first to describe sleep paralysis and to suggest pragmatic rather than supernatural treatment. He was also the first to present fever cure and his descriptions of meningitis (Lisarghos in Hida¯yat), mania, psychosis (Malikhulia), dementia (Ghotrab), etc., are close to current concepts.
Keywords Akhawayni, history of Medicine, Persia, Iran
Introduction
Biography 1
The renown in medicine in the Islamic Golden Age is indebted to Persian scholars including Haly Abbas (949–982 AD),2 Rhazes (865–925 AD),3 Avicenna (980–1032 AD)4 etc. Muslims, mostly Persians, translated foreign medical manuscripts from Persian, Greek, Indian and Syriac into Arabic, the Linga Franca of that period.5,6 Medical schools (from ancient Persia and other civilizations under the rule of Muslims including Jundishapur) also enjoyed renown and the scientific atmosphere of the period as well as the notable works of Muslim physicians enriched medical sciences in early medieval times in Islamic territories. Among the prominent figures of medicine from this period was Akhawayni, a great physician who made numerous observations in neurology and psychiatry7 and became famous as ‘Physician to the Insane’ but unfortunately he is not well known today and his works have not been translated into Latin or English.
Akhawayni (who was called as Joveini in Latin)8 was born in Bokhara, a city in the north east of Old Persia, in early 10th century AD and thus became known as Al-Bokhari.9 Bokhara was a great and important city, located on the Silk Road.10 Persia at that time was 1 Research Office for the History of Persian Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran 2 Student Research Committee, Department of History of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran 3 Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center and Department of Traditional Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran 4 Faculty of Traditional Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Corresponding author: Arman Zargaran, Research Office for the History of Persian Medicine, North Ghaani Avenue, Shiraz 7139748479, Iran. Email: [email protected]
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Journal of Medical Biography 24(2)
8. Pakenham, 1991, 572. 9. Emanoel Lee. To the bitter end. London: Guild Publishing, 1985, pp.27–84. 10. De Villiers JC. Healers, helpers and hospitals a history of military medicine in the Anglo-Boer War. Volumes I and II. Pretoria: Protea Book House 2009, p.42, pp.63–73, pp.340–357. 11. Hammar J. Tidskrift i milita¨r ha¨lsova˚rd, 1900: 83. Translation from Swedish by author. 12. Letter from Josef Hammar to his father 1900-01-31 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 13. Hammar, 1901: 18. Translation from Swedish by author. 14. Hammar, 1901: 136. Translation from Swedish by author. 15. Letter from Josef Hammar to Bisse 1900-04-04 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 16. Letter from Josef Hammar to Bina 1900-02-06 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 17. Letter from Josef Hammar to his father 1900-03-17 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 18. Hammar, 1901: 86. Translation from Swedish by author.
19. Hammar, Letter to Bina. Translation from Swedish by author. 20. Hammar J. Go¨teborgs handels och sjo¨farts tidning, 12 December 1900. Translation from Swedish by author. 21. Hammar, 1901: 18. Translation from Swedish by author. 22. Hammar, 1900: 22–23. 23. Carlsson Ernst. Skolgeografi, fo¨rsta kursen. Stockholm: 1919, p.196. Translation from Swedish by author. 24. Rosenblad Jan-Gunnar and So¨derholm Gundel, Boerna, hja¨ltarna som blev skurkar. Carlsson: 2013. 25. Hammar, 1901 22. 26. Vincent J Cirillo. Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930): physician during the typhoid epidemic in the Anglo Boer war (1899–1902). Journal of Medical Biography 2013; 22: 2–8. 27. Hammar, op. cit. (Note J) 23. 28. Hammar, 1900: 22. 29. Letter from Josef Hammar to his father 1900-07-07 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 30. Letter from Josef Hammar to his father 1900-08-13 (Private archive: Johan Hammar). Translation from Swedish by author. 31. Hammar, 1900: 143. 32. Grill, 144. Translation from Swedish by author.
John Alexander Sinton, MD FRS VC (1884–1956)
Journal of Medical Biography 24(2) 196–199 ! The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0967772013479524 jmb.sagepub.com
GC Cook
Abstract Brigadier John Sinton is the only individual in history to have been both awarded the Victoria Cross and also elected to the Royal Society. He qualified at Belfast and afterwards joined the Indian Medical Service (IMS). Serving before and during the Great War (1914–18), he was first posted to the North-West Frontier province, and afterwards as a captain in the Indian Expeditionary force in Mesopotamia (now Iraq). It was there in 1916 that, shot in both arms during an engagement and under heavy gunfire, he remained steadfastly at his post; for this bravery he received the Victoria Cross. Following the war he carried out major researches into malaria in India, and became Director of the Malaria Survey of India. Both there and shortly afterwards, Sinton published about 200 papers on various aspects of malaria and leishmaniasis. In England, he later worked at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Ministry of Health’s laboratory at Horton, Epsom. In 1946, he was elected to the Royal Society for his researches into malaria and kala-azar, and following retirement he underwent another distinguished career in Northern Ireland. Keywords John Alexander Sinton, Victoria Cross, Fellow of the Royal Society, Mesopotamia, Great War, Malaria in India, leishmaniasis University College London, UK Corresponding author: GC Cook, 11 Old London Road, St Albans, Herts, AL1 1QE, UK.
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Cook
197
Introduction At the 49th Annual General Meeting of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene on 21 June 1956, the President (Professor RM Gordon, FRCP, 1893–1961) presented the Manson Medal (‘the highest honour [of the] Society’) to the widow of Brigadier John Alexander Sinton, VC FRS, who had died on the previous 25 March.1–4 Sinton, a dashing red-haired Northern Irishman in his earlier days, was unique in being the only Fellow of the Royal Society to be a holder of the Victoria Cross. He was born at Victoria, British Columbia on 2 December 1884, his father being a descendent of a lowland Scottish family (most of whom were Quakers) that had settled in County Armagh, Northern Ireland, some two centuries previously. The Sinton family moved from Canada to Ulster in 1890. After schooling in Belfast, he entered the Queen’s College Medical School where he was a highly successful student, graduating MB BCh BAO with First Class Honours in 1908. After house appointments at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, and also junior appointments in pathology, he joined the Indian Medical Service (IMS) in 1911. He had previously obtained the DPH of both Belfast and Cambridge (1910) and the DTM (Liverpool) in 1911. While at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, he had become acquainted with two of the pioneers of tropical medicine – Sir Ronald Ross FRS (1857–1932) and Professor JWW Stephens FRS (1865–1946).
The IMS After a brief spell as Medical Officer to an Indian regiment, Sinton opted for war service and became heavily involved in the Great War (1914–1918). Stationed at Kohat in the North-West Frontier Province, he was Regimental Medical Officer to the 31st Duke of Connaught’s Own Lancers (an Indian cavalry regiment); he was also in charge of the Brigade Laboratory. When war broke out in 1914, he was posted as a Captain in the Indian Expeditionary Force D in Mesopotamia as RMO to the 37th Dogras and other units. In an engagement at Sheikh Sa’ad in 1916, in an attempt to relieve Kut, Sinton was awarded the Victoria Cross. Shot through both arms and also his side, he declined transfer to hospital and remained at his duties under very heavy fire. Several other deeds of bravery apparently followed. For these acts he received the award. He was also awarded the Russian Order of St George. Sinton continued in other ‘theatres of war’ until 1920, mostly in the NW Frontier Province but
Figure 1. Brigadier JA Sinton MD VC FRS (Courtesy: the Army Medical Services Museum).
also in Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Afghanistan and Waziristan. He was awarded an OBE (Order of The British Empire) in 1921. Following these military duties, he underwent a brief period studying sandflies (Phlebotomus spp) – the vectors of oriental sore and kala-azar – with Professors Robert Newstead (1859–1947) and John Gordon Thomson (1878–1937), at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. Overall, he published 36 papers on Indian species of Phlebotomus, and became a leading authority on this group of insects.
The Malaria Survey of India In 1921, Sinton returned to India and embarked on major researches into malaria. For some years, he was in charge of the Quinine and Malaria Enquiry (financed by the Indian Research Fund) under the Indian Research Fund Association (a body established in 1910) and in 1927 he was appointed to the first Directorship of the Malaria Survey of India, a post he retained until his first retirement in 1936. He was also a member of the Malaria Commission of the League of Nations. This organisation, based at Kasauli, had several
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functions, the most important of which was to advise the Government on all issues relative to malaria in India; however, it was essentially a research organisation. Kasauli was a hill station in Punjab on the first ridge of the Himalayan foothills, with easy access to Shimla, and in close proximity to the Government of India Central Research Institute and the Pasteur Institute of India. There was in addition a treatment centre, the Cantonment Hospital, where malaria in British troops acquired in all parts of India was treated. By virtue of his position, Sinton was an ex-officio member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the India Research Fund Association and later a member of its governing body. He remained a member of the Malaria Commission of the League of Nations and was also Co-ordinating Officer for India of that body. In 1929, the Malaria Survey started its own journal – the Records of the Malaria Survey of India (now the Indian Journal of Malariology). While in India, and also after retirement, Sinton published some 200 scientific papers, most of them on malaria, including its experimental and clinical aspects. While in India, he showed that pamaquin combined with quinine led to a striking diminution in the relapse-rate of Plasmodium vivax infection. His observations on P. ovale and on the newer antimalarials including plasmoquine (pamaquin), atebrin (maloprim) and proguanil (paludrine) were made in England at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (where he was Manson Fellow) and at the Ministry of Health’s Laboratory at Horton, Epsom.
Other research studies Sinton described various ectoparasites of Anopheles. He was also the first to describe canine leishmaniasis in India and he worked on the transmission of oriental sore. The economic aspects of malaria and its cost to the world were other topics on which he wrote extensively. He wrote a well-known work on What Malaria Costs India, a highly comprehensive document. For his work on both malaria and kala-azar, he was elected FRS in 1946. He also received numerous other awards, including the Mary Kingsley Medal of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in 1949.
World War II (1939–1945) Sinton was recalled to military service briefly in 1939, being on the reserve of Officers of the IMS, but on
reaching the age of retirement in April 1940 returned home and joined the Home Guard as a private! However, from June to November 1940 he was re-engaged by the RAMC as Consultant Malariologist to the East African Force and from April 1941 until April 1943 was employed by the British Government as Consulting Malariologist to the Middle East Force during which he travelled extensively in the Middle East and Africa. From March to July 1945, Sinton undertook an inspection and advisory tour of malaria conditions on the Indian Subcontinent and South-east Asia. At that time he was regarded as the foremost world authority on malaria.
Personal life Sinton married Edith Seymour Stewart Martin in 1923 in Kasauli and they had one daughter. He retired, with the courtesy title of Brigadier in 1945 to Cookstown, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland and became involved with numerous local affairs, becoming – among appointment to other offices – Pro-Chancellor of Queen’s University and President of the Queen’s University Association. He was also High Sheriff (in 1953) and Deputy Lieutenant of County Tyrone (in 1954). He devoted time to ornithology, gardening and fishing. Colonel HW Mulligan (1901–1982), with whom he worked for some 30 years, subsequently gave an account of his virtues as both a scientist and a friend. Mulligan echoed the general sentiments that he had ‘an acute and active mind’ and was in possession of ‘a charm [as well as a] natural kindness, generosity and reliability’ that endeared him to his colleagues.5–7 References and notes 1. Minutes of the 49th AGM of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. 21 June 1956. . 2. Anonymous. Tropical Medicine Award. British Medical Journal 1956; i: 757. 3. Anonymous. Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. British Medical Journal 1956; i: 1554. 4. Cook, GC. Twenty-six Portland Place: the early years of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Oxford: Radcliffe Publishing, 2011: 597. 5. Christophers R. John Alexander Sinton, 1884-1956. Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 1956; 2: 269–290. 6. Anonymous. John Alexander Sinton, VC OBE MD DSc Belf. FRS DL. Lancet 1956; i: 390–391. 7. Anonymous. J A Sinton, VC OBE MD DSc FRS. British Medical Journal 1956; i: 806–807.
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Author biography GC Cook, MD, DSc, FRCP, FRCPE, FRACP, FLS, is currently a Visiting Professor at University College London. He has previously held Chairs of Medicine in the Universities of Zambia, Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and Papua New Guinea. He has contributed over 500 papers and several books to medical/scientific literature. See also Who’s Who.
Akhawayni (?–983 AD): A Persian neuropsychiatrist in the early medieval era (9th–12th Century AD)
Journal of Medical Biography 24(2) 199–201 ! The Author(s) 2016 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0967772014525105 jmb.sagepub.com
Arman Zargaran1,2,3, Gholamreza Kordafshari4, Seyyed Rouhollah Hosseini2 and Alireza Mehdizadeh1
Abstract The early medieval era is also called the Islamic Golden Age because of the significant rise in sciences, including medicine. Abu¯ Bakr Rabi’ ibn Ahmad Akhawayni Bukha¯ri (better known as Akhawayni) was one of the notable medical practitioners in his lifetime. His fame was in neuroscience and he became known as Pezeshk-e-Divanegan (Physician to the Insane). His only surviving book, Hida¯yat al-Muta’allimin fi al-Tibb (The Students’ Handbook of Medicine), is the first medical textbook in Persian, after Islam. Akhawayni gathered and categorized available knowledge on neuropsychiatry and added his own. He was the first to describe sleep paralysis and to suggest pragmatic rather than supernatural treatment. He was also the first to present fever cure and his descriptions of meningitis (Lisarghos in Hida¯yat), mania, psychosis (Malikhulia), dementia (Ghotrab), etc., are close to current concepts.
Keywords Akhawayni, history of Medicine, Persia, Iran
Introduction
Biography 1
The renown in medicine in the Islamic Golden Age is indebted to Persian scholars including Haly Abbas (949–982 AD),2 Rhazes (865–925 AD),3 Avicenna (980–1032 AD)4 etc. Muslims, mostly Persians, translated foreign medical manuscripts from Persian, Greek, Indian and Syriac into Arabic, the Linga Franca of that period.5,6 Medical schools (from ancient Persia and other civilizations under the rule of Muslims including Jundishapur) also enjoyed renown and the scientific atmosphere of the period as well as the notable works of Muslim physicians enriched medical sciences in early medieval times in Islamic territories. Among the prominent figures of medicine from this period was Akhawayni, a great physician who made numerous observations in neurology and psychiatry7 and became famous as ‘Physician to the Insane’ but unfortunately he is not well known today and his works have not been translated into Latin or English.
Akhawayni (who was called as Joveini in Latin)8 was born in Bokhara, a city in the north east of Old Persia, in early 10th century AD and thus became known as Al-Bokhari.9 Bokhara was a great and important city, located on the Silk Road.10 Persia at that time was 1 Research Office for the History of Persian Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran 2 Student Research Committee, Department of History of Medicine, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran 3 Pharmaceutical Sciences Research Center and Department of Traditional Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran 4 Faculty of Traditional Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Corresponding author: Arman Zargaran, Research Office for the History of Persian Medicine, North Ghaani Avenue, Shiraz 7139748479, Iran. Email: [email protected]
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