Indigenous Health Systems Of India.

By Ashok Nath

One important area which successive Governments have neglected since Independence is propagation of our own health systems. It was only after attempts were made in the US to take out patents for herbal products based on Neem and turmeric etc that the Government woke up and set up a department of Indian systems of medicine. Then in 2014 a full fledged ministry of Ayush was formed. Ayush is an acronym for Ayurveda, yoga, unani, siddha and homeopathy. Its mandate is to set up training institutes in the respective streams, produce doctors in the different disciplines, carry out research, standardise products, establish laboratories in different regions for testing products and their certification.

I am not quite sure how far they have succeeded for it is absolutely essential that standard medicines, certified for quality like ISI or Agmark are made available to the public to establish credibility. There  should be a separate Drug Controller for the Ayush medicines. The existing controls on allopathic drugs is quite pathetic as it is, with quite a high percentage being spurious; scheduled  drugs are sold  without prescription over the counter, expired drugs are clandestinely sold in tier two and three towns. This high sounding organisation does everything but control.

We have started a bit late in the day. Wasted decades have ensured that companies manufacturing allopathic medicines have taken over most of the space in the healthcare field. With their money power, aggressive marketing, powerful connections in the corridors of power have made our indigenous systems struggle to survive, making them look like poor country cousins. It should have been the other way round, for our systems are safe, cost effective and affordable by the common man and have been in use for over a thousand years especially Ayurveda and Siddha.

Yoga, Ayurveda and Siddha have been practised in India from ancient times, long before modern medicine made its appearance on this planet a couple of hundred years ago. They are truly indigenous. Unani was introduced in India by the Arabs, was patronised by the Sultanate of Delhi and finally acquired firm roots under the Mughals. Homeopathy was the last entrant in this country, making its debut in the beginning of the 19th century. This system was invented by a German, Hahnemann. More of it later.

It   is true that modern allopathy has saved millions of lives ever since the discovery of penicillin in the 1940s, has done wonders in tackling widespread epidemics like cholera, malaria etc, is very useful in emergencies, accidents,surgery, has wiped out small pox and polio from India. Yet the western medicine system has several flaws and drawbacks, its widespread use leading to unintended consequences. Well put by Oliver Wendell Holmes, ” if all the medicines in the world were thrown into the sea, it would be bad for the fish and good for humanity.”

To start with, allopathic medicines are more expensive as compared to alternative healing systems. Every allopathic drug has a side effect. One relief and seven side effects. In contrast to the Indian system which focuses on the individual constitution the western system diagnostic technique treats all individuals alike. No two individuals are the same as evidenced by fingerprints, irises and voice frequencies. Then, it tackles only the symptoms and not the root cause of the disease. If you have a headache they tell you to take two aspirins and get done with it. A headache is only a symptom, the body signalling that something is wrong with it. But instead of finding out what is causing the headache it kills the symptoms. Voltaire wrote long ago, ” doctors prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing. ” Quite true even today! In the Indian system the doctor will try to find out the root cause and prescribe medication accordingly.

The most alarming unintended consequences of modern drugs is the over medication, indiscriminate use of antibiotic drugs, self medication. All this results in two things. Powerful drugs especially antibiotics kill the friendly bacteria in our guts, so essential for a healthy digestive system. Secondly, the bacteria is mutating itself faster than new drugs are being discovered, making drugs useless against the most common of diseases. Many people are now dying because drugs are ineffective. Can you imagine a cholera epidemic breaking out in India and the normal drugs hopelessly ineffective? Millions will die. In fact the superbug which is supposed to be resistant to all drugs started its journey from a Delhi hospital. With this scary scenario I can’t help but share a joke to lighten the mood. Doctors have to prescribe medicines as they have to live( earn a living), chemists have to dispense medicines as they have to live and patients have to throw away the medicines as they have to live too. ”

Fortunately, the medical authorities in the US are veering around and looking afresh at the whole problem of over medication, wrong approach to diagnostic techniques, emphasising more on prevention than cure etc. Dr. Abramson of Harvard University has this to say, ” Something is very wrong with the system that leads patients to demand  and doctors to prescribe a drug that provides no relief and causes more side effects. ” Perhaps this u-turn has been brought about by the public, frustrated by expensive drugs and the unholy nexus between the pharma companies and doctors and hospitals. I hope the health authorities in India are taking note of the recent developments.

Turning now to the Indian system of health, yoga is at the top. This ancient system offers multiple benefits to man. It imparts a sense of well being, helps you to live a healthy life, age gracefully, de stresses you. It gives you a flexible body and peace of mind. If you do it regularly it keeps you away from common ailments. Its most remarkable quality is that it can cure certain chronic disease and ailments which allopathy has failed to address. Anyway, the Govt. is doing enough to propagate it and hence I’ll not dwell on the subject.

Equally ancient is Ayurveda the principles of which are closely connected to the philosophy of holistic health and healing. As stated earlier, in contrast to the western system, Ayurveda is based on the unique natural constitution of EACH person. According to it, the body is made of the five elements– Earth, water, fire, air and space. From these five elements are derived the three energies known as doshas- vat, pitta and kapha. They govern our physical bodies. The three Gunas of Sattva, Rajas and Tamas are related to the mind. Since in the Indian system, unlike the western, there is a close connection between body and mind, when there is equilibrium amongst both the doshas and Gunas there is no problem. But any imbalance in either dosha or Guna causes disease. It is believed that the imbalance can be ” influenced by our thoughts, emotions, actions, the food we eat, our lifestyle and all other stimuli that affects our minds and bodies.” That is why it is holistic and not just about germs invading the body.

Ayurvedic medicines are usually made from plants. Every part of the plant is used, the roots, stems, leaves, flowers and seeds. But sometimes, gold and silver Bhasms are also used. It is a wonder of nature that it is the small innocuous plant which provides medicine for man not only in Ayurveda but also allopathy and homeopathy. There are still millions of plants whose medicinal properties have not been discovered yet. There are old tribals living in the forests all over India, especially north east, the western ghats and the rain forests. They are the repository of inherited secrets of traditional medicine. This goldmine has to be tapped, studied, tested in laboratories and drugs evolved. With the destruction of forests we will be losing this unfound wealth forever. That is why it is imperative to protect our environment at any cost otherwise future generations will never forgive us. I’ll give just one instance. In Arunachal Pradesh, I cut my finger while on tour. The bleeding wouldn’t stop. One official went quickly to a plant growing by the roadside , plucked some leaves, mashed them and put the pulp on my finger. The bleeding stopped immediately. I am not ware of any allopathic medicine which can perform this simple miracle. If the molecules from this plant could be extracted and made into medicine what a bonanza for mankind.

I’d like to give one example of human greed. There is a plant growing in western Kameng district of Arunachal Pradesh known as ‘ Taxas Bacattas, a species of the Yew tree. An American firm doing research on cancer extracted a chemical called ‘Taxol ‘ and found it promising. They were extracting from yew trees growing in Mexico or somewhere but found out that our species much better. Nobody knows how but they managed to make contacts with local tribals and started to get a steady supply. The saddest part of the story is that only chips of bark are used but the local yokels started chopping down whole trees as the price was then lakhs of rupees per kg. in the international market. As the whole habitat was being endangered I reported the matter to the State. Govt. as well as the Central Ministry of Health but I don’t know the outcome as I had left shortly afterwards.

Homeopathy works on two principles.  Firstly, a substance that causes symptoms of a disease in healthy people would cure similar symptoms in sick people. Secondly, give least amount of medicine necessary to evoke healing response. In other words the more diluted a medicine the more effective it will be. The process of dilution is known as tituration. You take one part of the mother tincture, the actual medicine, add 99 parts of alcohol, this is one potency. Now you take one part of this and add 99 parts alcohol, this is two potency. You carry on like this and you get 30 potency. Then 200. There are even potencies of 1000 and more. It is so much diluted that it becomes atomised to nano level. No wonder the allopaths laugh and say, there is hardly any traces of medicine left, how can it cure. But amazingly it does. And what’s more it works much faster than allopathic drugs, contrary to people’s perception that homeopathic medicines work very slowly.

You swallow an allopathic tablet it goes down in the stomach where it gets processed and then released into the blood. In homeopathy you put a few pills on your tongue. Since it operates at nano level it gets absorbed immediately into the bloodstream and delivered to each and every cell in the body and the medicine starts working right away. Homeopathic medicine is the most precise of all systems. Same medicine will not be given to two individuals even though suffering from the same ailment. It takes into account your constitution, your body frame, your habits; whether you like hot or cold things, spicy food or sour or sweet and so on. If you have a headache your allopath will tell you to take two aspirins. As I have said earlier, headache is only a symptom, your body telling you that there is something wrong . The allopath kills those symptoms and the root cause of the headache will remain.

In homeopathy there are more than a dozen kind of headaches; it could be due to stomach problem, extreme hot or cold, stress or eyes train and so on. A good homeopath will ask you a lot of questions and give you the precise medicine for the problem causing the headache. I’ll give you one instance. When I was  I kid I had a headache one day after seeing a movie in the afternoon. In the evening a family friend, a homeopath, dropped in for a cup of tea. As he was sipping his tea my mother mentioned to him that I had a headache. As he started to give me a medicine after asking a few questions my mother casually told him that we had just returned from the movie hall. He immediately threw away that medicine and gave me another one. That’s homeopathy for you.

Most homeopathic medicines are plant based but some are sourced from minerals, insects and even animals. For instance the medicine for bee sting is made from bee venom. Some are made from the most poisonous plants known to man like Belladona, Nux Vomica, Aconite-a deadly poison used by Arunachal tribals to poison the tips of their arrows for hunting. Arsenic a deadly poison is also  a homeopathic medicine . The jamun fruit is used in Ayurveda for curing diabetes. Likewise a medicine from jamun extract has been made in homeopathy called Syzygium jambolanum. Very effective. Has helped me to reduce my blood sugar level. There is medicine for every problem known to man, memory improvement, eliminating stress, exam jitters, increasing confidence and self esteem and what not. Here is what Gandhiji had to say about homeopathy, ” homeopathy cures a larger percentage of cases than any other method and is beyond all doubt safer, more economical and the most complete medical science. ”

The other day I finished reading a wonderful book, titled ‘ Living in Rhythm With Nature…simple steps to holistic health.’ Written by Prema Raghavan and published by Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. Within 147 pages she has been able to compress a goldmine of information in a simple and lucid style, eminently readable. It covers holistic health, power of the mind, healing of the mind, food and digestion, importance of fasting, restful sleep, holistic health lifestyle, the dark side of modern medicine, healthy cooking and home remedies and health food recipes. What more could you want in 300 rupees? I was really impressed and totally satisfied with the valuable knowledge it imparts. In fact, it was this book which inspired me to write this article. I would unhesitatingly recommend to everyone to buy one and keep it like a Bible or Gita in the house. I have taken umpteen liberties to quote extensively from the book hoping that Premaji will not mind.