Fever type classification from the point of view of Galen, correction and annotion"Al-hommiat Galen"

Abstract

Fever is one of the most striking and obvious signs of the disease with various symptoms throughout human history for physicians and even for ordinary people. The views of traditional medicine in the Middle Ages about the causes and types of fever are largely based on the views of Galen. In traditional medicine, fever is an unnatural heat in the body that starts in the heart and spreads to all blood vessels. The most famous and common classification of fever is the one introduced by Galen classification, in which fever is divided into three types ("one-day fever", "infectious fever" and "hectic fever"). Furthermore, in his classification, and effective factors" and "general factors" have been also categorized and corresponding specific symptoms have been assigned to each class. In this study, due to the importance of fever in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases, we corrected and translated the manuscript book of "Al-hommiyat Galenus" into Persian, for the first time after centuries, and regarded it as the main basis of our research on the classification of fever types , Additionally, we collected the opinions of the sages from the third century to the middle ages of Islam, in a historical trajectory, using first-hand sources and texts (in a library manner) extracted from various books and databases. Using a "descriptive-analytical" research approach and from the point of view of the commonalities and differences between distinct classifications, we could analyze and compare different fever types. Searching for valuable works left by the sages of different centuries, we came to the conclusion that Galen was one of the most influential individuals in Greek medicine, and each of the sages benefited (in terms of medical knowledge) from the works of their predecessors, led by Galen. By development of medical science over time, each of the physicians and sages have added their experiences to it and transferred their resources to others. In the case of the classification of fever types, this process has continued until Ibn Sina, who stablished a comprehensive and extensive classification of fever types.