TEHRAN – The Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) has included the term “Persian Medicine” in its vocabulary used to index, catalogue, and search journal articles, books, and other biomedical and health related information.

The inclusion of “Persian Medicine” in the Medical Subject Headings is an important achievement in the global consolidation of this medicine, Arman Zargaran, an official with the Ministry of Health has announced.

The Medical Subject Headings is a comprehensive controlled vocabulary for the purpose of indexing journal articles and books in the life sciences. It serves as a thesaurus that facilitates searching.

Iranian traditional medicine is one of the most ancient forms of traditional medicine. Created and updated by the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM), it is used by the MEDLINE/PubMed article database and by NLM's catalog of book holdings. MeSH is also used by the ClinicalTrials.gov registry to classify which diseases are studied by trials registered in ClinicalTrials.

The Office of Complementary and Persian Medicine of the Ministry of Health started its efforts two years ago to add Persian medicine to the MeSH, he explained.

He also considered this achievement as an important step towards the consolidation of Iranian medicine as a branch of medical knowledge in the international dimension, which is also a major step in the internationalization of Persian medicine and codification of articles.

Pointing to the extensive cooperation with the World Health Organization and the success of many countries in educational and research cooperation, he emphasized the need for national determination to maximize the capacity of Iranian medicine in better medical and health services.

Medicinal plants in Iran

Iranian traditional medicine is one of the most ancient forms of traditional medicine. It is grounded in the concept of four senses of humor: phlegm (Balgham), blood (Dam), yellow bile (Safra'), and black bile (Sauda'). The concept of four senses of humor is based on the teachings of Rhazes and Avicenna into an elaborate medical system.

Iranian traditional medicine strongly focuses on prioritizing health maintenance and disease prevention over treatment.

So far, about 30,000 plant species are identified in the world, with Iran's share of about 8,000 species that its plant diversity is more than the whole of Europe.

Currently, about 2,300 species of medicinal plants have been identified in the country, accounting for one-third of the medicines used in human societies, the share of world trade in these products is about $124 billion and Iran’s share is $570 million, which is only 0.5 percent of the total.

The per capita consumption of medicinal plants in Iran is about one kilogram of dried plants, in other words, 83,000 tons of medicinal plants worth 1.2 trillion rials (around $29 million at the official rate of 42,000 rials) are consumed in the country, while in Europe this amount is 900 grams and in the United States is 2.5 kilograms.

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