Ayurveda
[2] Therapies include herbal medicines, special diets, meditation, yoga, massage, laxatives, enemas, and medical oils.
[11][12] Ayurvedic preparations are typically based on complex herbal compounds, minerals, and metal substances (perhaps under the influence of early Indian alchemy or rasashastra).
Ancient ayurveda texts also taught surgical techniques, including rhinoplasty, lithotomy, sutures, cataract surgery, and the extraction of foreign objects.
[15] The main classical ayurveda texts begin with accounts of the transmission of medical knowledge from the gods to sages, and then to human physicians.
[19] In ayurveda texts, dosha balance is emphasized, and suppressing natural urges is considered unhealthy and claimed to lead to illness.
[39] The seven dhatus are chyle (rasa), blood (rakta), muscles (māmsa), fat (meda), bone (asthi), marrow (majja), and semen (shukra).
[45][39] For example, a person who is thin, shy, excitable, has a pronounced Adam's apple, and enjoys esoteric knowledge is likely vata prakriti and therefore more susceptible to conditions such as flatulence, stuttering, and rheumatism.
[39][46] Deranged vata is also associated with certain mental disorders due to excited or excess vayu (gas), although the ayurvedic text Charaka Samhita also attributes "insanity" (unmada) to cold food and possession by the ghost of a sinful Brahman (brahmarakshasa).
[57] Ayurveda has eight ways to diagnose illness, called nadi (pulse), mootra (urine), mala (stool), jihva (tongue), shabda (speech), sparsha (touch), druk (vision), and aakruti (appearance).
Hygiene, including regular bathing, cleaning of teeth, oil pulling, tongue scraping, skin care, and eye washing, is also a central practice.
In the 19th century, William Dymock and co-authors summarized hundreds of plant-derived medicines along with the uses, microscopic structure, chemical composition, toxicology, prevalent myths and stories, and relation to commerce in British India.
The use of opium is found in the ancient ayurvedic texts, and is first mentioned in the Sarngadhara Samhita (1300–1400 CE), a book on pharmacy used in Rajasthan in Western India, as an ingredient of an aphrodisiac to delay male ejaculation.
[70][72] The book Yoga Ratnakara (1700–1800 CE, unknown author), which is popular in Maharashtra, uses opium in a herbal-mineral composition prescribed for diarrhea.
[76] Panchakarma refers to five actions, which are meant to be performed in a designated sequence with the stated aim of restoring balance in the body through a process of purgation.
[77] Ayurveda is widely practiced in India and Nepal[3] where public institutions offer formal study in the form of a Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) degree.
[9][81] A 2014 national health survey found that, in general, forms of the Indian system of medicine or AYUSH (ayurveda, yoga and naturopathy, unani, siddha, and homeopathy) were used by about 3.5% of patients who were seeking outpatient care over a two-week reference period.
[82] In 1970, the Parliament of India passed the Indian Medical Central Council Act which aimed to standardise qualifications for ayurveda practitioners and provide accredited institutions for its study and research.
[84] The Indian government supports research and teaching in ayurveda through many channels at both the national and state levels, and helps institutionalise traditional medicine so that it can be studied in major towns and cities.
[89] An Indian Academy of Sciences document quoting a 2003–04 report states that India had 432,625 registered medical practitioners, 13,925 dispensaries, 2,253 hospitals and a bed strength of 43,803.
Due to different laws and medical regulations around the globe, the expanding practice and commercialisation of ayurveda raised ethical and legal issues.
[22] In some cases, this involved active fraud on the part of proponents of ayurveda in an attempt to falsely represent the system as equal to the standards of modern medical research.
The ayurvedic practitioner Michael Tierra wrote that the "history of Ayurveda in North America will always owe a debt to the selfless contributions of Baba Hari Dass".
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) stated that "Few well-designed clinical trials and systematic research reviews suggest that Ayurvedic approaches are effective".
[126] A 2008 study of more than 230 products found that approximately 20% of remedies (and 40% of rasashastra medicines) purchased over the Internet from U.S. and Indian suppliers contained lead, mercury or arsenic.
Many ancient works on ayurvedic medicine are lost to posterity,[148] but manuscripts of three principal early texts on ayurveda have survived to the present day.
[154]The Bower Manuscript (dated to the early 6th century CE[155]) includes of excerpts from the Bheda Samhita[156] and its description of concepts in Central Asian Buddhism.
In 1987, A. F. R. Hoernle identified the scribe of the medical portions of the manuscript to be a native of India using a northern variant of the Gupta script, who had migrated and become a Buddhist monk in a monastery in Kucha.
The Chinese pilgrim Fa Hsien (c. 337–422 CE) wrote about the healthcare system of the Gupta empire (320–550) and described the institutional approach of Indian medicine.
[158][159] Underwood and Rhodes state that the early forms of traditional Indian medicine identified fever, cough, consumption, diarrhea, dropsy, abscesses, seizures, tumours, and leprosy,[40] and that treatments included plastic surgery, lithotomy, tonsillectomy,[161] couching (a form of cataract surgery), puncturing to release fluids in the abdomen, extraction of foreign bodies, treatment of anal fistulas, treating fractures, amputations, cesarean sections,[Vagbhata 1][161][disputed – discuss] and stitching of wounds.
[170][171] In Renaissance Italy, the Branca family of Sicily and Gaspare Tagliacozzi (Bologna) were influenced by the Arabic reception of the Sushruta's surgical techniques.
