Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine

The medical Arjuze is one of the less known works of Avicenna, a great Iranian scientist and physician, which is written didactically in Arabic. In this book, Avicenna has composed 1326 lines about a complete cycle of traditional medicine of Iran in Arabic in the form of battle cry. Didactic poetry is one of the poetry forms which its main purpose is to provide educational aims and to convey scientific terms both in literature and poetical way. Avicenna's poetry in Arjuze is simple and fluent. The medical topics are overviewed in a sketchy way and not in full details in this book. In this book, theoretical and practical medicines are explained in two specific parts.
The existence of French and English translations of Arjuze shows the value of this work for Europeans as a complete outline about medicine in that time, but there is no Persian translation of this work, available. Traditional Medicine and History of Medicine Research Centre of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences has started the translation of medical Arjuze with the aim of introducing this precious work which shows the educational pattern of traditional Iranian scientists in using didactic poetry.
The purpose of this article is to introduce the characteristics of Avicenna's Arjuze with an overview of his position in modern traditional medicine.