1, 4 Subsequently, a university, medical school and hospital was established by Khusraw (Chosroes) Anushirawan in about 555 AD. 1, 5 The closing of the Athenian school by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian (529 AD) also drove many leaned Greek physicians to Jundi-Shapur. 1, 4 The Nestorians were granted refuge under the patronage of Shapur II when the School of Edessa was purged by the Byzantines in 457 and later shut down by Emperor Zeno in 489 AD. Many Syrians took refuge there when Antioch was captured by Shapur I. With time, it became a refuge and melting pot for intellectuals from various regions. It was first established to settle Greek prisoners. 1, 4 Located in south-western Persia, the site is now marked by the ruins of Shahbad near the city of Ahwaz. Jundi-Shapur, meaning ‘Beautiful Garden’, was a city in Khuzistan founded by the Sasnid Emperor Shapur I (241-272 AD). JUNDI-SHAPUR AND THE TRANSMISSION OF KNOWLEDGE FROM GREEK TO ARABIC The bimaristans of yore were similar in philosophy, structure and function to contemporary academic medical centres, and served as a model for those to follow in Europe. 3 This is particularly true in the case of hospitals and medical education. Following the destruction of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258 AD, and Spain's re-conquest in the late 1400s, many Arab and Persian medical contributions were lost to the west until recently. Under the patronage of the Islamic empire, near- and middle-easterners both preserved ancient knowledge and flourished to blossom into scientific innovators with originality and productivity in their own right. 1 ‘Bimaristan’ is a word of Persian origin meaning ‘location of disease.’ The bimaristan at Jundi-Shapur served as a stepping stone for future advancements in medical care, hospital organization and structure, medical records, physician and pharmacist licensure, and medical education. 2 In contrast, treatments at the Jundi-Shapur hospital and later Islamic bimaristans were based on scientific analysis, in true Hippocratic tradition. 1, 2 The treatments in Greek ‘Asclepia’ and Byzantine ‘Nosocomia’ were rendered as a mixture of shamanistic practices and purgative drugs. 1 Most of the therapy in these sanatoria consisted of prayers and sacrifices to gods such as Asclepius or Imhotep, and cures were attributed to divine intervention. Prior to this era, the sanatoria and travel lodges of antiquity were either temples or temple annexes, where the infirm were minded by attendant priests.
With the exception of the hospital at Jundi-Shapur, hospitals as we now know them probably were not present prior to 400 AD.
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