Old remedies for epilepsy : avicenna’s medicine

Abstract EN

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.