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i) A very large number day to day minor ailments clear out on their own, with a little patience. One should give the body a chance to recover on its own, instead of subjecting it to avoidable drug stress, and worse through self-medication. Dietary management of minor problems is the most sensible alternative way of handling them.
POPULARISATION OF MEDICINE
It is conceded that the general public should have a recourse to easily accessible and inexpensive therapies. Folk/home medicine, which finds much favour in this context, is not different from the other types of medicine in its consequences. Wrong medication, wrong dosage, acclimatisation of the body on continued use, acquired resistance developed by micro-organisms on improper usage/dose, etc., are all real problems in home medicines, which also function, like any other medicine, in terms of chemical interactions between the medicine and the body.
These days we find hundreds of prescriptions of home/folk medicine for use against a myriad of problems published in newspapers and magazines in all languages. The writers are not professional (Ayurvedic or other) practitioners or scientists in the field. Most of the writings are just heresy or at best copied from some publication which was a copy of something else. Hardly any of the prescriptions is well thought of and balanced. The authors are not even amateurs in the field, and the whole thing smacks of quackery. These writings do a lot of disservice to the cause of the otherwise very useful home/folk medicine. They should be discouraged. If at all, such writings should be from professional physicians and scientists of the particular system of medicine, with a clear description of the symptoms, the prescription, dosage, duration of the treatment and the possible side effects, contra-indications and precautions to be taken.
Many of the food items have their own therapeutic value (see Appendix 29) and they are an integral part of folk/home remedies. Unfortunately, several food items are in constant and even excessive use by some people. If a person consumes large quantities of heavily spiced food over a long period of time, the body gets acclimatised and the micro-organisms acquire resistance to the effects of pepper, cloves, cardamom, cinnamom, ginger, turmeric, etc. Such people cannot be expected to derive any therapeutic benefits from these very useful substances. This is one of the causes for the ‘failure’ of folk/home remedies.
In some newspapers and magazines, prescriptions, sometimes even in Alllopathy, are suggested, of course, by professionals, in response to readers’ requests. This too is incorrect as the symptoms were described by laymen and there is no medical supervision during treatment.
The personnel working in medical shops are another group of free-lance prescribers. There should be some control on this.
If the sale of drugs of all systems is strictly regulated a number of problems related to non-professional and self-prescriptions would be minimised.
Medicine, of any system, should not be popularised. Popularisation enhances the temptation and scope for misuse and abuse of medicine through self-medication. What should be popularised to educate the public is a) the general hygiene that is essential for health, b) the diseases that are likely to occur in a particular region and/or in a particular season, c) their early symptoms, d) the precautionary and preventive (non-medical) measures to be taken, e) the medical help that is available in the region that can be sought in times of need, and more importantly, f) the risks of self-medication.
We should leave the complex business of diagnosis and treatment of disease in the competent trained hands of the medical profession, of whatever system it may be. In a country like India with vast uneducated population and largely irresponsible personnel involved in the management of various organs of the health services, this is difficult to achieve but a beginning has to be made, sometime, somewhere.
RELIABILITY OF SOURCES OF INFORMATION ON MEDICINAL PLANTS
Sources of information on Indian medicinal plants are in abundance, but the problem lies in separating the grain from chaff.
The classical texts on Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani are not too many. Authentic translations of these in English and regional languages are available. Reliable compilations of Indian medicinal plants have also been published in English and some regional languages a long time ago. Additions to the species in this kind of literature come from research, in phytochemistry and pharmacology, published in standard journals. This type of literature, cited in different places in this volume, is the backbone of our work.
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