ABSTRACT
Mohammadhassan Gholami-Shabani,1 Masoomeh Shams-Ghahfarokhi,2 Mohammadreza Shidfar3
Modern medical education was started in Iran on December 21, 1851 when Darolfonoun, the fi rst modern academy of Iran, was inaugurated in Tehran through the endeavors of then Prime Minister Mirzataghikahn Amirkabir. The fi rst report of a fungal infection in Iran goes back to around 80 years ago in 1937 when Habibi reported a case of rhinosporidiosis as a subcutaneous fungal involvement of nasal mucosa (Habibi 1939). Until 1962, when modern mycology was introduced in Iran, mycological studies were restricted to Tinea capitis, a dermatophytic infection of scalp and hair. At that time, patients who referred to the Razi hospital in Tehran were treated using only traditional methods according to the clinical signs without any mycological examination of the lesions. Responsibility of the education of medical mycology was denoted to Dr. Mohammadali Faghih when it was restricted to courses about clinical signs of tinea capitis and observation of microscopic slides of scalp hair involvement,
1 Department of Mycology, Pasteur Institute of Iran, Tehran 13164, Iran. 2 Department of Mycology, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, 14115-331,
Iran. 3 Department of Mycology and Parasitology, Faculty of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical
Sciences, Tehran, Iran. * Corresponding author: mrab442@yahoo.com; mrab442@pasteur.ac.ir
# Dedicated to the memory of Prof. Shamsoddin Mofi di, who established modern Medical Mycology in Iran in 1962.
