Syria and Lebanon are modern countries with ancient memories. The earliest settlements date back to the Paleolithic era, while during the Bronze Age, the coastal cities of Byblos, Sidon, and Tire emerged as trading hubs and conduits of knowledge, as their ships carried cedar, purple dye, papyrus, medicinal resins, and botanical materials across the Mediterranean. The Phoenicians spoke Canaanite dialects and maintained close commercial and religious ties with Egypt, as evidenced by Egyptian records describing “Byblos ships” and diplomatic exchanges. Inland Syria contained equally ancient centers of civilization, including Damascus, Aleppo, Ebla, Ugarit, and Palmyra. Damascus, often described as one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, prospered because of its fertile oasis and its position along major commercial routes.

Successive empires ruled the region. After the Assyrians, Babylonians, and Persians came the Greeks, Romans, and Byzantines. Under their influence, medicine became increasingly associated with observation, anatomy, diet, and theories of bodily balance. Beirut became known for its school of Roman law, while Antioch, now in Turkey but historically connected to Syria, was one of the great medical and intellectual centers of the eastern Mediterranean.

The Arab conquest of the seventh century brought Syria and Lebanon into the expanding Islamic world. Damascus became the capital of the Umayyad Caliphate from 661 to 750, governing an empire that stretched from Central Asia to Spain. Arabic became the principal language of administration and scholarship, and Islamic medicine flourished in Damascus and Baghdad. Hospitals known as bimaristans emerged as important institutions of treatment and education. One of the most celebrated hospitals was the Nur al-Din Bimaristan in Damascus, founded in the twelfth century. Such hospitals often had separate wards, pharmacies, lecture rooms, and provisions for treating mental and physical illness. Physicians studied earlier authorities, particularly Hippocrates and Galen, but did not merely preserve classical medicine; they criticized, organized, and expanded it.

From the early sixteenth century until the First World War, most of Syria and Lebanon belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Society was organized around cities, villages, religious communities, and regional notables. University-trained physicians practiced alongside herbalists, midwives, bonesetters, barbers, and religious healers. Families depended heavily on domestic remedies, while monasteries and charitable foundations cared for the sick. During the 19th century, European influence and missionary activity introduced new medical schools, hospitals, quarantine regulations, and vaccination programs. Beirut emerged as a particularly important center of modern education and medicine. The Syrian Protestant College was founded there in 1866, and its medical school opened the following year. Renamed the American University of Beirut in 1920, it became one of the Middle East’s leading institutions for medical education, research, and nursing. French, American, and local benefactors established hospitals and introduced Western surgical techniques, modern obstetrics, and advanced public health concepts.

The First World War brought catastrophe. Military requisitioning, blockade, crop failure, inflation, and a devastating locust infestation contributed to famines, especially in Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands died from hunger and disease. After the war, France received a League of Nations mandate over Syria and Lebanon. It created Greater Lebanon in 1920, incorporating Beirut and surrounding coastal and inland territories into a state with a diverse population of Maronite Christians, Sunni and Shia Muslims, Druze, and other communities. Syria was divided and reorganized several times before emerging as an independent state in 1946.

Lebanon gained independence in 1943, entering a period of cultural vibrancy and medical advances. Beirut became a regional medical hub, home to private hospitals with high standards of care and physicians trained in Europe and North America. Syria experienced coups, military rule, and the rise of the Ba’ath Party. Hafez al-Assad took power in 1970 and established an authoritarian state that his son Bashar later inherited. Lebanon’s civil war, lasting from 1975 until 1990, devastated the country and drew in Syrian, Israeli, Palestinian, and other forces.

In Syria, the uprising of 2011 produced one of the century’s gravest medical emergencies. Hospitals were destroyed; healthcare workers were killed, detained, or driven into exile; and millions of people were displaced. Physicians sometimes operated in basements and improvised clinics, treating trauma patients with inadequate electricity, anesthesia, blood, or antibiotics. Interrupted vaccination, unsafe water, malnutrition, and overcrowded camps encouraged the return of preventable diseases. The fall of the Assad government in late 2024 did not immediately restore Syria’s shattered infrastructure. In 2025, the World Health Organization estimated that about 15.8 million Syrians required essential health assistance. Only 57 percent of hospitals and 37 percent of primary care centers were fully operational, while shortages of personnel, medicine, equipment, water, and electricity continued. Lebanon had received a large population of Syrian refugees while confronting its own political paralysis, economic collapse, and repeated armed conflict. Inflation and currency depreciation have made medicines and treatment unaffordable for many families, and many physicians and nurses emigrated in search of stability. It is tragic that the people of the region have repeatedly seen their society undermined by famine, sectarian conflict, authoritarian rule, economic collapse, and war. It is to be hoped that peace and political stability will prevent these wounds from being inflicted again.