The Afghan Persian word for hospital is "Shifa Khane" (شیفا خانه): "House of Health".

The Iranian Persian word for hospital is "Bimaristan" (بیمارستان): "Place of Sickness".

I think the Afghan version is a little bit more positive and optimistic.

The Persianate world has a rich heritage when it comes to medicine. Let´s not forget that the fathers of modern medicine were two Persian physicians: Ibn Sina and Razes.

Remains of the University in Ancient City of Gundeshapur. This city, located in what is now Western Iran, was one of the most important medical cities in the Ancient World. The Academy of Gundeshapur (فرهنگستان گندی‌شاپور, Farhangestân-e Gondišâpur) and one of the most...

important Sassanid educational centers along with Ctesiphon and Resaina.

"To a very large extent, the credit for the whole hospital system must be given to Persia."

— Cyril Elgood, A Medical History of Persia.

The modern versions of hospitals were created in the Islamic Age. Bimaristans served all people regardless of their race, religion, citizenship, or gender. The Waqf documents stated nobody was ever to be turned away. There was no time limit a patient could spend as an in patient.

Men and women were admitted to separate but equally equipped wards. The separate wards were further divided into mental disease, contagious disease, non-contagious disease, surgery, medicine, and eye disease.

Patients were attended to by same sex nurses and staff. Each hospital contained a lecture hall, kitchen, pharmacy, library, mosque and occasionally a chapel for Christian patients.

Physician licensure became mandatory in the Abbasid Caliphate. In 931 AD, Caliph Al-Muqtadir learned of the death of one of his subjects as a result of a physician's error. He immediately ordered his muhtasib Sinan ibn Thabit to examine and prevent doctors from practicing...

until they passed an examination. From this time on, licensing exams were required and only qualified physicians were allowed to practice medicine.

Conventional modern portrait (on a silver vase) of Ibn Sina. Avicenna Mausoleum and Museum, Hamadan.

Abū 'Ubayd al-Jūzjānī, (d.1070), (ابو عبيد جوزجانی) was a Persian physician and chronicler from what is now Jowzjan (modern Afghanistan).

He was the famous pupil of Avicenna, whom he first met in Gorgan. He spent many years with his master in Isfahan, becoming his...

lifetime companion. After Avicenna's death, he completed Avicenna's Autobiography with a concluding section.

Colophon of Razi's "Book of Medicine".

Illuminated opening of the first book of the "Kitab al-Qanun fi al-tibb" ("The Canon on Medicine") by Ibn Sina. Unknown origin, probably Iran. Beginning of 15th century.

A cataract is a clouding of the lens in the eye which leads to a decrease in vision. Early Persian physicians called the term nazul-i-ab ("descent of the water"— waterfall/cataract), believing such blindness to be caused by an outpouring of corrupt humour into the eye.

Cataract Surgery

Persian physicians in the Islamic Age removed the lens by suction through a hollow instrument. Bronze oral suction instruments have been unearthed that seem to have been used for this method of cataract extraction during the 2nd century AD.

Such a procedure was described by the 10th-century Persian physician Zakariya Razi, who attributed it to Antyllus, a 2nd-century Greek physician. The procedure "required a large incision in the eye, a hollow needle, and an assistant with an extraordinary lung capacity".

This procedure was also described by the Iraqi ophthalmologist Ammar Al-Mawsili, in his Choice of Eye Diseases, in the 10th century and also by the Spanish Andalusi physician Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi.

Thread about the Khorasani physician Zayd Balkhi, the father of "mental health". Check it out! https://twitter.com/BiruniKhorasan/status/1169665462592057347

First page of the Latin translation of the Ibn Sina´s Canon of Medicine "Canon: Liber Canonis, de Medicinis Cordialibus et Cantica, iam olim quidem a Gerardo Carmonensi ex arabico in latinum conversa"

Commemorative medal issued by the UNESCO in 1980 to mark the 1000th birth anniversary of Ibn Sina. The obverse depicts a scene showing Avicenna surrounded by his disciples, inspired by a miniature in a 17th-century Turkish manuscript; whilst on the reverse is a phrase by...

Avicenna in Arabic and Latin: “Cooperate for the well-being of the body and the survival of the human species”. The UNESCO established the Avicenna Prize for Ethics in Science in 2002.

The title page of a Latin Edition of Ibn Sina’s “Canon of Medicine” together with two of his other works; Cardiac Medicines and the Medical Poem (the Cantica Avicennae) published in 1562. The page on the right is page 1082; the beginning of the Cantica section.

Thread about Bakhtshooa Gondishapoori (Bukhtishu). Persian physicians from the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries, spanning six generations and 250 years. Imagine a 250 years old medical dynasty! Amazing!

Check it out! https://twitter.com/BiruniKhorasan/status/1160203721151787009

Persian version of "The Canon of Medicine" located at tomb of Ibn Sina in Hamedan, Iran.

Beautiful.

Ahmad Farrokh was a 12th-century Persian physician from Herat. He is author of a medicine encyclopaedia in Persian language titled Kifayah that is no longer extant though it had a high reputation among scholars.

The National Library of Medicine has in its collection a formulary of compound remedies (Qarabadhin)

Najib al-Din al-Samarqandi, Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn ‘Ali ibn ‘Umar (d.1222 AD), a medical compendium of five works, signed by Futuh ibn Mahmud ibn Mas’ud al-Unsi al-Isfahani, Persia, Yazd, Muzaffarid, dated 754 AH/1353-54 AD.

This manuscript contains five works by Samarqandi with the following titles:

1. Kitab al-qarabadhin ‘ala tartib al-‘ilal, 'The Formulary Arranged According to the Classification of Diseases'.
2. Kitab usul tarkib al-adwiyah, 'The Principles of the Preparations of Drugs'.

3. Kitab al-aghdhiyah wa’l ashribah wama yattasil biha, on foodstuffs and beverages.
4. Risalah ‘ala al-‘ayn, a treatise on the eye with one illustration.

5. Kitab aghdhiyat al-mardha fi jumlah al-khamsa al-najibiyyah al-samarqandiyyah, on foodstuffs used for the treatment of the sick.

Samarqandi´s compendium was entirely written in Arabic language, with a naskh script in black ink,

Opening an Arabic formulary titled Kitab al-Qarabadhin alá tartib al-ilal (Compound Remedies Arranged According to Ailment) by Najib al-Din al-Samarqandi (d. 1222/619).

Reduction techniques for spinal deformities. “The Canon of Medicine”. Illustration from the 1556 edition of Persian physician Avicenna’s The Canon of Medicine, a translation by medieval scholar Gerard of Cremona.

Folios from Ibn Sina’s celebrated work "AI-Qanun fit-tibb", known as "The Canon of Medicine" in Europe. It was translated into Latin in the 13th century and served as the Principal textbook for medical students at several European universities until the 18th century.

Zayn al-Din Jurjani (d.1136 AD), "Zakhirah-yi Khwarazmshahi" ('Treasury dedicated to the king of Khwarazmshahi'), an encyclopaedia of medical science. Khwarezm, 13th century.

Anatomical illustration showing nerves of the human body, Iran, 19th century. Wellcome Library, London.

Sayyed Esmāʿil Jorjāni (b. Gorgān, 1043-44?; d. Marv, 1136-37) Tajik physician who served two Khwarazmshahs Qoṭb-al-Din Moḥammad and his son ʿAlāʾ-al-Din. For the former he composed his Ḏaḵira-ye ḵᵛārazamšāhi, the largest encyclopedia of Galenic medicine in Persian.

These two works, which are important both for the study of the history of medicine in Iran (in the broader ancient geographical sense of this toponym) and for the study of the development of Persian technical (medical) language, have not yet been thoroughly studied.

In the case of the Ḏaḵira, the Persian physician Jāmi Šakibi Gilāni (1984) has extracted a large part of its “pure Persian” medical vocabulary, which he has proposed as a guide and model for modern medical word-formation in Persian (about 440 terms).

On "Drugs recommended for lice control, Jorjāni recommends the following method:

A) Keeping oneself clean
B) Wearing Cotton and Silk Clothing
C) Changing them Frequently
D) Using anointments composed of the following drugs which work as desiccating agents:

1) Fruits of sumac with Olive Oil. 2) leaves and roots of Rumex 3) Alum (vitriol) with olive oil. 4) leaves of Melia azedarach. 5) leaves of pomegranate; 6) leaves of colocynth 7) leaves of myrtle 8) leaves of Thymus Serpyllum 9) leaves of flax [Linum Usitatissimum]