Editorial HISTORY OF MEDICAL RECORDS AND PEER REVIEW

into the spotlight a fact widely unknown about medical record-keeping and peer review as practiced in the Arab world in the 11th century.1 Although there is a widely held assumption that regular record-keeping about patients was invented only in the last two centuries, it is difficult to accept that a sophisticated profession dealing with the very precious subject of human health would be left without written documentation for so many centuries. Judges, dealers, merchants, revenue collectors and teachers used records of their work from the earliest time. Why would physicians have been an exception, especially given the fact that their work is liable to challenge in case of an undesirable outcome? Dr. Ajlouni refers to the system of “Hisbah ” (quality control) as applied to medicine in the 11th century. While hisba