LOIASIS IN UNANI MEDICINE Medical Journal

Loiasis is a disease, which has been discussed in classical literature of Unani Medicine as ‘Illa al-Baqar. Unfortunately this fact has been intentionally or unintentionally ignored by historians and its discovery has been attributed to French surgeon, Mongin who lived during 18th century A.D. In this paper, related Arabic texts have been reproduced to claim that the first definitive record is that of Abū al-Qāsim al- Zahrāwī (d.1031 A.D.) who described the disease in his famous book Kitāb al-Taṣrīf with necessary details. Later, the disease was again discussed by Abū Marwān ‘Abd al-Malik ibn Zuhr and Amīn al-Dawla Abū al- Faraj ibn Ya‘qūb ibn Isḥāq ibn al-Quff al-Karakī who lived in 12th and 13th centuries A.D., respectively