Abstract
Lokman Hekim, a myth in Islamic and Turkish Culture, was a medical doctor. Much that is said about him is legendary. The Arabs say that he lived around 1100 B.C., was a coal-black Ethiopian with wooly hair, and the son of Baura, who was a son or a grandson of a sister of Job. Lokman is often confused with Aesop, who was also a Negro, and who, it appears, adapted some of Lokman’s fables for his own use. Aesop lived about 500 years after Lokman. He was perhaps most famous for his longevity (the euivalant of seven eagles’ life) times, approximately 560 years) and his belief that he found the secret of immortality. He had collected all cures for diseases and the elixir of immortality in a black book. Lokman Hekim met with Death Angel one day on Misis Bridge. The Angel envied him and pushed him, and the black book dropped into the Ceyhan River, in Adana. In Islam his fame equals that of Solomon in the Christian-Jewish world. Mohammed quoted him as an authority and named the thirty-first chapter of the Koran after him. Of Lokman’s intimate life all we know is what may be deduced from his proverbs and from anecdotes. In this article three anecdotes related to the tumor releasing effect of wild mint (mentha), etiology of enuresis and difficulties in child health are presented.