Principles of Treatment in Ayurveda

 

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In Ayurveda, treatment is fundamentally a process of restoration and building up, consisting largely of the elimination of undesirable ingredients and replacing them by desirable ingredients from outside. Except in emergencies, medical measures have always the long term aim of restoring the lost equilibrium of doshas and dhathus or of stabilising any imbalance which may be present in a state of apparent health.

Foods, drugs, therapeutical and surgical measures, daily routine in health and medical measures in sickness, all are therefore, oriented to the paramount need of creating and maintaining an equilibrium of the gunas, doshas, dhathus and malas, individually and jointly. Only then it is possible to uproot the causes of the diseases. Procedures are of two types: a) cleaning or evacuative and b) tranquilisation or rectification of humours and dhathus.

 

4    FOOD IS MEDICINE

           Ayurvedic treatment consists of using both food and medicinal plants to obtain a cure, choosing those with known opposite qualities to the causes of the illness diagnosed.

          Such a positive approach to nutrition, is also found in the Hippocratic doctrine that there is no illness, only sick people and ‘food is (the sole) medicine and medicine is food’.

          According to the intrinsic properties, foods undergo metabolism into body elements of the same nature and inhibit the formation of those having the opposite properties. A properly planned diet, using various agreeable and nourishing foods in rotation, regulates the body elements.

 

4 THE PREVENTION OF DISEASE

         The best way to avoid diseases is to keep a strict check on diet, habits and hazards which are likely to cause aggravation. Similarly, the best way to gain health and vigour, both physical and mental, is to live in such a way that the humoural imbalance is gradually rectified or counter balanced. With these ends in view, Ayurveda has formulated an extensive series of rules concerning tasty and seasonal diets, routine, and conduct which can maintain, and gradually improve, physical health and mental level, ward of senile decay and promote longevity.

        Meticulous cleansing and ablutions are given a special importance in such routines. Physical exercise and walking are recommended. Diets and habits should always adjust to seasonal, climatic and geographical factors.

        Ayurvedic texts give detailed descriptions of the physiological actions of all edible and potable substances. Food and drug substances have six pure tastes (shadruchis): sweet, sour, saline, bitter, pungent and astringent. A judicious selection of edible and potable substances from the different taste groups, in agreeable combinations, would maintain health and cure disease.

 

4 IMMUNOENHANCING IN AYURVEDA

         The concept of immunity has been a later development in modern medicine, but it was very deeply studied in all its aspects in Ayurveda, by Charaka. It is simple, natural and effective. The aetiological factors are abnormality in timing (parinama), mistakes of the intellect and unsuitable contact of senses with sound, touch, vision, taste and smell. These cause disease. People who are very obese or very lean, have lax muscles and their blood and bones are weak, who indulge in unsuitable food, who are under nourished and have a weak mind, are not able to resist the disease. Those contrary to the above are resistant. Because of these differences, diseases can become mild or severe, acute or chronic, easily curable or difficult to cure or incurable.

Four types of immunity are recognised:

a) Sahaja, inherited/congenital, from mother and father

b) Kaalaja, seasonal/age, childhood susceptible, youth more resistant and oldage susceptible

c) Yuktikaarita, acquired immunity through rasayana therapy; and

d) Vyaayaama (exercise), where 50 per cent of our exertion capacity is utilised in immunity building.

Natural urges also affect or promote immunity. Accordingly some are to be expressed and some to be suppressed, as follows:

a) urges not to be suppressed: urination, defecation, sexual act, flatus, vomiting, sneezing, eructation, yawning, hunger, thirst, tears, sleep, breath after exertion; and

b) urges to be suppressed : evil ventures related to thought, speech and action, grief, fear, anger, vanity, shamelessness, envy, greed, excessive attachment and violence.