Aboutorab Naficy

Aboutorab Naficy (ابوتراب نفیسی) (2007–1914) was an Iranian physician and heart specialist, receiving the latter specialization from Harvard University. He was a professor of medicine at Isfahan University’s Medical School and a member of Iranian Encyclopedia of Medical Sciences (فرهنگستان علوم پزشگی ایران). In addition to teaching at the university and in related hospitals and serving as the dean of the medical school for some time, he maintained a private practice of his own for about five decades. Among his qualities were the manner in which he combined knowledge and techniques of modern medicine with those of the traditional medical practices of Iran as well as his sharp observations and accurate diagnostic skills.

Between the 1950s and the 1970s, he taught and published textbooks about modern medicine, while continuing his research into, and publications about, traditional medicine, herbal medicine, and Islamic medicine. For a time, he served as director of the Institute for the Study of Traditional Medicine at Isfahan University's School of Medicine. He retired from the university in 1981 and in 1990 was recognized as the Distinguished Permanent member of the Iranian Encyclopedia of Medical Sciences. He continued to see patients in his private clinic until he was eighty years old.

Naficy attended a screening of the film Behind the Doctor in Isfahan on 17 March 1944. The film was about the diagnosis of diphtheria and ended with a question and answer period afterwards. Through such methods, surgical techniques were promulgated through Iran.

Naficy was born in 1914 in the small village of Pudeh (today's Puyan Shahr) near Isfahan, and he died in November 2007 in Isfahan. Generations of his ancestors were physicians or physician-scholars.