Hakim Mohammad Azam Khan Chishti (1814-1902) and His Book about "Crisis in Diseases"

The term “crisis” in medical context is an important turning point or stage which occurs in some diseases and if not managed correctly, can become life threatening. Despite the use of the term in modern medicine, it was a much wider and sophisticated traditional medical concept. The first usage has been seen in the Greek writings of Hippocrates. In the Islamic Golden Age, this concept entered Persian Medicine by translation of Greek medical treatises. Great Persian Medicine scholars have paid particular attention to the concept and have written exclusive chapters about it. One of such scholars, Hakim Mohammad Azam Khan Chishti (1814-1902), an Indo-Persian physician and medical writer, wrote several comprehensive encyclopedic books - in Persian language - about various aspects of Persian Medicine including crises. In this historical review we discuss his biography and his books, especially his important book Rokn-e-Azam, which is a comprehensive work on the concept of crisis in which he collected and discussed opinions of great medical scholars from ancient times to the 19th century. Despite his fidelity, unfortunately he rarely criticized the previous literature and thus did not add an additional value to the subject else than his comprehensive review. In the recent worldwide accepted roadmap towards Integrative Medicine, studying such inclusive traditional manuscripts may give better insight and understanding of the behavior of acute and chronic diseases and their appearance, exacerbations and remissions.