The Afsantin plant with scientific name of Artemisia Absinthium is called Khotroq in Arabic, Majtari in Hindi, Marwa in ancient Persian, Abestion in Greek and Rebl in Egypt. Figure 1 shows a picture of this plant kept in the National Library Museum. 



This plant has been mentioned by Dioscorides (40-90 AD), Galen (129-200 AD) and Paul of Aegina (625-690 AD), and various healing properties have been reported for it including its use for treatment of gastric and liver diseases. In traditional Asian and European medicine, this plant has been used as a medicine to treat gastrointestinal ulcers, helminthiasis, insomnia, and bladder diseases. It has been used in traditional Brazilian medicine to improve digestion; in Cuba as an anti-malarial plant; in China to treat cancer; in Turkey to help treat diabetes; and in Pakistan to treat fever.
Studies on the Afsantin plant are very valuable according to recommendation of the World Health Organization to use the capacity of traditional medicine and complementary medicine to improve health. The purpose of this novel study is to examine this plant based on the original sources of traditional Iranian medicine (TIM) and with emphasis on its therapeutic effects on the liver. This study can provide good ideas for future studies. In this regard, the use of Afsantin plant in the treatment of liver diseases in the works of three great physicians of traditional Iranian medicine Zakaria Razi (854-925), Ibn Sina (980-1037) and Sayyid Ismail Jorjani (1341-1041) are reviewed.

In this qualitative study, by referring to specialized libraries and using various digital resources such as Noor software, Qatar Digital Library as well as online search on manuscripts, maps, voices, images, etc., the Afsantin plant was first examined in terms of terminology based on TIM. After knowing the different names of this plant, which was obtained from the books of TIM such as Al-Sidna Fi Al-Tib by Abu Rihan, Makhzan Al-Adawiyah, and published articles, the names were searched in various medical books, especially books written by Ibn Sina, Zakaria Razi and Sayyid Ismail Jorjani (Al-Mansouri fi al-Tib, al-Gharz al-Tabiyya wa al-Mabahith al-Alaiyya, Yadegar, Khafi Ala’i). Finally, three famous books of Kitab Al-Hawi, Qanon, and Zakhirah-i Khwarazm Shahi were reviewed and different medical prescriptions related to Afsantin were extracted and different uses of this plant in diseases, especially liver diseases, were noted and coded in Excel software. Then, articles related to medicinal applications of Afsantin in liver diseases were extracted by searching in databases such as PubMed, google scholar, Scopus, and using the keywords Liver disorder, Artemisia, Razis, Avecina, Jorjani, and collected data were compared with the data obtained from previous medical books.

Ancient Iranian physicians had described various types of liver disease in their works. The Afsantin plant been used alone or in combination with other substances in three books (Kitab Al-Hawi, Qanon, and Zakhirah-i Khwarazm Shahi) in 179 prescriptions for treatment of different diseases mostly for liver inflammation (23%), jaundice (20%), ascites (19%), and liver disease (18%). The most common form of administration of this plant was oral form (80%) followed by topical form (20%). In combined forms of use, lavender (30.2%), lemongrass (24.6%), anise (17.3%), Chinese rhubarb (17.3%), rose (16.2), saffron (15.1), Maghsoul (14.5%) champignon (14%), and Agrimonia eupatoria extract (14%) had been mostly used along with Afsantin to enhance the therapeutic effect of Afsantin or eliminate its negative effects on the body.

The examination of modern medicine articles also revealed the sufficient knowledge of the authors of these books about liver diseases. The results of comparison showed that primary liver diseases such as hepatitis and alcoholic and non-alcoholic liver diseases were in the same category as primary diseases and initiators of liver diseases, i.e. bad mazaj, and ascites was equivalent to cirrhosis plus ascites. It can be said that due to the extensive use of this plant by famous Iranian physicians and the consistency of their findings with those of modern medicine in the field of treatment of liver diseases, If the effect of this plant on liver diseases based on TIM be studied more widely and the results of this study are measured by the standards of modern medicine, new solutions can be achieved in the treatment of liver diseases.

All ethical principles are considered in this article.

This research did not receive any grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or non-profit sectors. 

All authors equally contributed to preparing this article.

The authors declared no conflict of interest.
 

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