Concepts of Health and Medicine in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh

Shahnameh(The Book of Kings) is a national epic of Iran and Farsi speaking territories. Shahnameh contains more than 50000 couplets composed by Hakim Abu ʾl-Qasim Ferdowsi Tusi(940–1020 AD). There are many philosophical, social, ethical, and romantic as well as health and medical concepts in the content of Shahnameh. To mention a few, the stories of Simurgh, Alexander and the Indian physician, Borzuyeh Tabib as well as some diseases, treatments, psychological disorders, and injuries inflicted in the battles are presented in the context of Shahnameh. Ferdowsi also used some medical terminologies to describe his literary concepts. This brief review describes the antiquity and originality of medicine in Iran and reviews the health and medical concepts in the Shahnameh. Several examples of couplets in Farsi are selected to adapt with the English text.