The first original Persian-language anatomy textbook based on western medical science, printed in a very small number of copies for the use of Polak’s Persian students. Polak, an Austrian physician, was responsible for establishing a modern European-based medical curriculum in Iran, augmenting (and eventually supplanting) the traditional Galenic medicine that had been taught in that country since the tenth century. At the invitation of the Persian government, Polak moved to Tehran in November 1851 to teach at Iran’s Dar al-Fonun (now the University of Tehran), the country’s first modern institute of higher learning, which included a medical school for the training of army physicians. He remained at the school for over eight years, returning to Austria in 1860.

During his tenure at Dar al-Fonun Polak instructed classes of 15-20 students in the basics of Western medicine and surgery—a task made more difficult by the students’ lack of the necessary scientific knowledge and background, since these first pupils “consisted mostly of princes, sons of courtiers and other high government officials” (Floor, The beginnings of modern medicine in Iran, pp. 1-15).

The first Persian-language surgery and ophthalmology textbook based on Western medical science. Polak based his textbook on Joseph Maximilien Chelius’s Handbuch der Chirurgie (1830) and Handbuch der Augenheilkunde (1843), but added chapters of his own on local maladies such as leishmaniasis, guinea worm, leprosy and bladder stones, based on his own extensive experience treating these diseases in Persia. 

In this wide-ranging ethnographic study Polak provided the most authoritative account of his introduction of western medicine into Iran as well as the state of medicine in Iran generally. "Polak (1865, II, pp. 192-348) devoted five chapters to exclusively medical topics. He describes the various health care professionals, their income, status and methods of treatment, as well as narcotics, poisons, and antidotes. He provides an encyclopedic list of common diseases, followed by a practical section on travel advice for foreigners, even including psychological problems of acculturation (Polak, 1865, II, pp. 349-60). Although he is not completely free from Orientalist misconceptions and remains strongly convinced of the overall superiority of the West, his detailed observations are extremely valuable. His medical practice allowed him to gain unique insights into Qajar society. For example, Polak (1865, I, p. 204) soberly notes the occurrence of a perineal tear in girls as resulting from marriage before puberty—nowadays this is considered child rape" (Encyclopedia Iranica). Digital facsimile from the Internet Archive at this link.