This department belongs to the Institute for the History of Arabic Science. It is a postgraduate high institute of the Aleppo University, Aleppo-SYRIA. The Institute was established in 1976. This History of Medicine Department is considered a unique one of its kind in the entire Arab world, as it is developed to carry out research related to Arab and Muslim Medicine and the achievements of Arab and Muslim physicians during the Medieval Ages. In addition, the department grants Masters and PhD degrees in the field of the history of medicine. All students who want to register in this department should be graduated from colleges of Medicine, Pharmacy or Dentistry.

The department (under the umbrella of the institute) held eight international symposiums in Aleppo, Kuwait, Granada, Ras-Alkhaymah-UAE, Munich and Alexandria, and held twenty eight annual conferences in different Syrian cities.

The Institute contains an important library with rare books, microfilms or manuscripts or even original manuscripts. All of these could be borrowed through interlibrary loan. Photocopying is possible once special permission is granted from the institute director.

The Institute library contains: 20,808 books written in Arabic or other languages, some of them considered rare books; 360 periodicals; 462 original manuscripts, mostly related to medicine during the Medieval Ages, written by Arab and Muslim scholars in addition to other scientific fields (Math, Algebra, Chemistry, Physics, Astronomy…); 3,500 microfilms for manuscripts written by Arabic or other languages; 1,500 handbooks, copybooks, newsletters and some documents, films and maps.