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Old Remedies for Epilepsy: Avicenna's Medicine
A A Asadi-Pooya1, A R Nikseresht, E Yaghoubi
1Research Center for Traditional Medicine and History of Medicine, Shiraz Medical School, Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.
Background:
The history of epilepsy and its treatments dates back to at least 4 millennia. Avicenna, c. 980 AD in Bukhara, Khorasan-1037 in Hamedan was a Persian-speaking Iranian physician, who has many recommendations and suggested various therapies for epilepsy in his book, The Canon of Medicine.
Methods:
We first reviewed the most important ancient treatments for epilepsy mentioned by Avicenna and considered those as the key words for our next step. Then, we made a literature search (medline and scopus) with those key words to find out new scientific findings in modern medicine about the Avicenna's suggestions.
Results:
Among the Avicenna's recommended therapies for epilepsy, only Rue has been tested for anticonvulsant activities in modern medicine. Interestingly, it had a dose dependent anticonvulsant effect.
Conclusion:
It is worthwhile to consider the Avicenna's recommended therapies for epilepsy and to design future scientific studies based on his suggestions.
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