THE FIRST MEDICAL EXAMINATION IN HISTORY

Candidates sitting for any medical specialty examination are frequently too engrossed with how to pass the examination and want to know why the examination has to be taken in the first place. Afterwards, it really makes no difference. Historic records show that the first ever medical examination was administered 12 centuries ago in Baghdad.1 Ali Ibn Rabban of Tabaristan, a Persian physician from the southern part of the Caspian sea, entered the service of Caliph Al-Mutawakkil as court physician in Baghdad. In 850 AD, he completed his 550-page medical compendium called “The Paradise of Wisdom” in which he wrote: “He who perpends this book with understanding resembles one who wanders in fruitful and pleasant gardens, or in the markets of great cities, wherein is provided for each of the senses its pleasure and delight. But just as he who limits his knowledge of such gardens and cities to the contemplation of their gates is as one who sees naught of them, so he who enumerates the chapters of this my book without attentively reading what is contained in each, doth not understand the true meaning of what I say… But he who masters this book, and fully fathoms and perpends it, will find in it the greater part of what the young graduate needs of the Science of Medicine and the action of the natural forces in this Microcosm and also in the Macrocosm.”