Authors' response to Hasan

Dr Hasan's helpful observation highlights the problems of diagnosing ailments from ancient texts written in languages that may provide difficulties with translation.

The Arabic text by Muhammed ibn Zakariya′ al-Rāzī (commonly known as Rhazes) to which Dr Hasan refers was originally published in Persia in around 865 AD; versions in Arabic ¹ and German ² are available in modern sources. Meyerhof has also given an English translation of one of Rhazes' cases, labelled ‘Hay-fever (?), followed by Rheumatic Polyarthritis’, as follows: ³

The son of Al-Hasan Ibn ‘Abdawaih suffered from attacks of coryza so heavy and severe that I have never witnessed a similar case before. Even the slighter form of it used to remain with the sufferer a month and more and to descend to the chest, causing coughing and expectoration. This patient showed an improvement about the middle of the day so that he did not feel any discomfort, but this caused him pain in the articulations.

In 1565 Leonardus Botallus from Pavia also published an account of a case that might have been hayfever. ^4,5

However, in neither case does it seem to have been clear that the condition described was the same as that which Bostock described, which is clearly recognizable as hayfever; Bostock's paper is regarded as the first clear description. ⁵