Jakob Eduard Polak (12 November 1818 – 8 October 1891) was an Austrian physician, born to a Jewish family from Bohemia, who played an important role in introducing modern medicine in Iran.

He was one of the six Austrian teachers invited by Amir Kabir, the Persian chief minister, as the instructors of Dar ul-Fonun, the first modern higher education institution in Iran.

By his own account, he entered Iran on 24 November 1851, before the inauguration of the Dar ul-Fonun.

[2] In 1885, he funded Otto Stapf, a Viennese botanist, to undertake a botanical expedition to South- and Western Persia.

Polak published his Persian experiences in: "Persien, das Land und seine Bewohner; Ethnograpische Schilderungen" (Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1865), which belongs to the outstanding ethnographic works about 19th-century Iran.