A HISTORICAL REVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF PATHOLOGY IN IRAN Moslem Bahadori MD•

athology as a science of discovering the reasons for an illness has attracted the attention of physicians since the time of antiquity. The Egyptian Edwin Smith Papyrus (1700BC), the oldest known medical document, contains references to mechanisms and causes of various diseases including tumors of the breast, wound healing, and infection.1 Despite this long-standing interest, significant progress in our understanding of the science of pathology has come only in the last quarter of the second millennium, in which anatomic explorations have become available and have featured the gross appearance of organs. Later, morbid anatomy facilitated recognition of the macroscopic characteristic of diseased organ and tissue, enabling pathology to become a new tool for the recognition and interpretation of diseases. Subsequently, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, morbid histology became known to physicians, including Rudolf Virchow who was inspired to formulate the cellular theory of diseases, pathology, as a clinical science, has become a powerful skeleton for the diagnosis and management of diseases. Pathology in Iran Despite the great expansion and better understanding of medical sciences in Iran, particularly during the Islamic period, we know very little of the approach to pathology in this period. There is good evidence of gross descriptions of diseases such as cirrhosis of the liver, pulmonary tuberculosis, pleural effusion, and others in the famous Iranian medical texts such as “Kanon ” of Ibn-Sina and “Almasoodi ” of Razi. However, there are no data available as to how these early scientists obtained this knowledge as dissection of the human dead body was prohibited during that period. It is believed that this degree of knowledge is obtainable only through physical examination, surgery, or postmortem observations. Darolfonoon and Madreseh-Teb With the establishment of a modern-typ