Until now, there have been no books and only a few articles available in English that deal with the actual practice of medicine in nineteenth and early twentieth-century Iran. Willem Floor's Public Health in Qajar Iran fills this lacuna, giving a broad and comprehensive survey of the state of public health, medical practice, and its practitioners in 1800-1925. Based on firsthand accounts of European travelers and doctors who practiced and observed medical treatment, the study provides an overview of the major diseases the population suffered and how these were treated. It also includes the available evidence logged by Iranian patients abroad and at home, as well as contemporary Persian texts that comment on public health and its practice in Iran. Floor shuns the analysis of classic Islamic medical textbooks, explaining that their medical advice was hardly ever administered and that the authors often had ideological (religious) agendas in writing these treatises. Instead, Floor investigates the commonly accepted theories of diseases, disorders, and their cures, including Islamic Galenic medicine and pre-Islamic theurgic folk medicine based on traditional herb lore and trial-and-error. The book concludes with the impact of Western medicine on the traditional medical institutions and public health in Qajar Iran. This exhaustive inquiry will enthrall scholars of Iran and medicine alike.

Public Health in Qajar Iran

Floor, Willem M.

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Mage Publishers

Essays on the plague and cholera in Iran. As well as quarantine, influenza, medical infrastructure, geophagy, and early steps toward veterinary medicine in Iran.

Studies in the History of Medicine in Iran

Medical Books

History

Salar al-Dowleh, the madcap prince and serial rebel, was a reflection of the unsettled political times during the early 1900s when Iranian society was trying to find its way toward a more democratic society. This is also clear from Salar al-Dowleh's "career." He was first courted by the democrats, when they ditched him, he tried to court them but when his nephew was enthroned instead of him, he joined the reactionary forces.As a serial rebel Salar al-Dowleh was a failure, because he did not have a program (apart from killing and plundering) that supporters could believe in. In fact, his rebellions had no other cause than himself. Salar al-Dowleh told each audience what it wanted to hear. He passed himself off as a constitutionalist, a nationalist, an anti-Russian, a pro-Russian, an anti-British, a pro-British, an Islamist, and anything else. He was an uncaring and rapacious governor and a murderous, destructive, plundering rebel, who did not care about the harm and misery he inflicted on his country and his countrymen. After his final ouster from Iran in 1913, driven by financial need, Salar al-Dowleh again tried to play a role in Iranian politics in 1914, 1918, 1924, 1925 and 1926. He was not successful in any of these and was finally exiled by the British to Haifa (1927-1936). When his Iranian pension was stopped, he moved to Alexandria (1936-1959), where he died, a forgotten man.For those interested in Iranian history, the rebellions started by the prince are as important to study as the political debates in the Majles--they both arose from the same unresolved dynastic, political, social, and economic conflicts in Iranian society during that turbulent period.

Salar al-Dowleh: A Delusional Prince and Wannabe Shah

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

For this book, Willem Floor has selected and translated into English thirteen German sources reporting on events in Iran from 1580 to 1722. One of these sources has never been published before; four of them are complete books, while the others only have sections dealing with Iran. Most of these sources are unknown to scholars either because they are hard to find or because the Gothic script and obsolete words makes them difficult to read, even for German scholars. Ten are travel books: six largely about Bandar Abbas and Qeshm. Three of the authors narrate their encounters with Persia and Persians, from Azerbaijan down to the Persian Gulf and Qandahar. One is a fragment of a diary with very interesting information, and the last two were written to inform the interested reader about Iran, its geography, its people, its economy and its type of government. In fact, the last book was especially written to apprise the public about current events in Iran in 1722, providing breaking news on the Russian invasion of Persia with background information for context. These translations provide much new information for scholars interested in Safavid Persia. They also shed light on how Europeans viewed Persia and Persians, and how they were able to learn about them without having to travel there.

German Sources on Safavid Persia

Worm, Johann Gottlieb

Schillinger, Frantz Caspar

Europe

Persia: An Area Study, 1633

Middle East

Until recent times, Iran regularly had to cope with local or national famines. The various governments, until the second decade of the twentieth century, had neither a policy nor institutional arrangements to deal with grain shortages, artificial or not, and the resulting famines. In severe cases of famine governments might have temporarily intervened in the market, but usually they left care for the hungry to private philanthropy. Invariably, this private effort was inadequate when compared to needs. Although there were earlier incidental efforts, it was only as of 1918 that a beginning was made for more permanent and structural pro-active measures to prevent rather than to combat famine. The creation of the Edareh-ye arzaq or Alimentation Service in Tehran and Tabriz to ensure food security saved thousands of lives in the years that followed. Despite this result, its work is almost totally ignored; there is not even an encyclopedia article about its activities. In this study, Willem Floor discusses the early efforts to combat famine as well as the beginning of a more targeted and structural approach developed by Lambert Molitor in Tabriz during 1917-18 as well as its application in Tehran as of 1918. Whereas in Tabriz, after 1918, the approach was reactive, in Tehran a pro-active program was developed, which as of 1922 became part of the tasks of the Millspaugh mission. During 1926-27 there was even a quasi-national food security program. After Millspaugh's departure in 1927 the food security of Tehran became an entirely Iranian affair, which as of 1935 was transferred from the Alimentation Service to a State company that had a national food security responsibility.

Food Security in Iran: Edareh-ye Arzaq, 1910-1935

Historical Study & Educational Resources

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Books by Floor, Willem M.