These men developed medicine into an art and gave it a scientific touch. They laid the foundation of therapeutics on careful observation and experiment and introduced method of taking medicine histories (R.H.M. Unani medicine India. Presentation at First International congress of Oriental Medicine. Seoul: October 1976). The Unani physician gives medicaments or treatments to enhance the person’s own restorative power to reach the healthy state. The nature of the substance matches the nature of the illness. The Unani system places great reliance on the pulses for diagnosis. The particularly observed features are quantity, force, duration of movement, condition of the vessel, wall, volume, duration of diastole, palpation of the pulse, equality and in-equality, balance of the pulse, and rhythm. Unani medicine places great emphasis on treating certain ailments by administration of specific diets or by regulating the quality and quantity of food. Many foods are supposed to have laxative, diuretic and diaphoretic properties. The weakness of certain organs is thought to be corrected by administering the same organ of an animal by way of food: disorders and weakness of the liver, for instance, are treated by feeding the patient liver. Similarly, heart, kidney and brain are given to treat ailments of these parts. This approach is also being used by many …show more content…
They were also conducting clinical trials on substances in the treatment of ulcers, diabetes and infertility. Professor R. Kumaraswamy, a professor of Medical Botany, explained that practitioners of the Siddha and Ayurvedic sciences accept the concept that everything is made of five cosmic elements: earth, fire, air, water, and ether. Both the patient and the medicament consist of these five elements, and a disease condition represents a stage of derangement of this cosmic equilibrium. According to the concept of ancient studies, there are three major cosmic forces, or biospheres, controlling the activities of living beings. These forces are the “Vaatha”, representing the creative or anabolic forces, “Kapha”, representing the destructive or catabolic force, and “Pitha”, representing the protective force comparable to the glandular and thermoregulatory phenomenon of the body. These three environmental states represent three separate physiological biospheres and are made up of a proportionate combination of the five elements. Ayurveda stresses the use of plant-based medicines and treatments. Plant-based medicines are derived from roots, leaves, fruits, barks and seeds such as cardamom and cinnamon. William Dymock and co-authors summarized hundreds of plant derived medicines in 19th century, along with the predominant history, uses microscopic structure, chemical