Eastern Physicians’ Perspectives on the Principal Vital Organs (Azayeh Raʾīsa) in Islamic Medicine (3rd-6th Centuries AH/9th-12th CE)

Abstract

In Persian medicine, the concepts of patient and disease, medicine, and treatment are based on the Iranian-Islamic worldview. In this kind of philosophy, they believed that in the human body, the three members (the heart, the brain, and the liver) are the chief due to the vital actions they perform for the body, and they are called the board members (Major vital organs or Azayeh Reiseh). The remaining bodily organs operate as subordinates to these principal members. Each of the Physicians examined in this study has different opinions about the priority of the board members. The main purpose of the research is to review and compare the Physicians’ opinions about the priority of the board members, relying on historical sources and citations and using the library method. The findings of this research show that the sages of Eastern Islamic civilization do not agree with the members of the body board. © Journal of Research on History of Medicine.