Cancer Terminologies Used in the Medieval Texts to the Early Modern Iranian Traditional Medicine (ITM)

Abstract

A Large number of people are affected by cancer and the primeval history of this malady has attracted attention toward complementary and alternative therapies to manage this disease. The present study has performed a survey on cancer in the Iranian Traditional Medicine during the Islamic era (ITM) by focusing on cancer terminologies and related diseases over a millennium, from medieval to the early modern era. Seven ITM medical texts, in Arabic and Persian languages, from 7th to 18th century AD were evaluated. These medical literatures have been our the sources of ITM cancer recognition clues. These clues have been related to some cancer and cancer-like diseases. The terminologies could be helpful for future ethnopharmacologic assay about cancer in ITM.

Keywords

• Avicenna
• Cancer
• Historical texts
• Iranian plateau
• Iranian Traditional Medicine