|
founded on the principles
propounded by Galen, a Greek practitioner.
Kitab – al – shifa, the Magnum opus of Abu
Sina, an Arub Philosopher and physicist,
also known as Avicenna in English (A.D.980 –
1037), played a role of great importance in
the development of this system. In fact that
today this style of medicine is not known as
Galenic, as it was earlier called, but the
Unani (Arabic name for Greek) system of
medicine.
The essence of the
Galenic system was the so – called humoral
pathology which, having originated in the
Hippocratic school of Kos, came to be
modified by Aristotle and by medical schools
such as Penumaticians. It was molded by
Galen into a comprehensive and well –
thought – out theory, the main point of
which was that food, after being ingested
was transformed by natural warmth in the
stomach into different substances. Part of
these were useful to the body and after a
second transported by the blood to the
different organs of the body, while the
waste was excreted. The main products of
this process were the four cardinal humours:
blood, mucus, yellow bile and black bile.
These humours were combined with the four
primary qualities: warmth (or dampness), and
dryness.If the four humours and the four
primary qualities were all in a state of
mutual equilibrium, man was healthy. The
influence of exterior factors such as
climate, age, profession, customs, etc
caused a dominance of one of the four
humours to be observed in every human body.
This gave a man his “temperament”, which may
be sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, or
melancholic.
The magic word of this system was eukrasia,
or more comprehend sively symmetria (Arabic
I’tidal). It was by conserving symmetry in
the different spheres of his life that a man
protected his health and it was by teaching
his patients how to conserve or restore it
that physician made himself indispensable in
the Galenic system. The Galenic physician
was meant not only to be a simple
practitioner busy with curing bodily
diseases but an ethical instructor as well.
Another characteristic
feature of the Galenic system was the
Aristotelian relation between the general
and the particular. What the medical
textbooks contained were only the general
facts of anatomy, pathology, therapeutics,
etc. From these general rules, physicians
had to derive the appropriate individual
treatment for a given case by means of
logical procedure, especially by the so –
called analogical conclusion (analogismos).
This was why in the Unani system it was not
possible to be a good physician without
having thoroughly learned the rules of
logic.
Hospitals were built by
both rulers and noblemen from the beginning
of the Muslim rule, but their endowment was
looked on rather as a matter of philanthropy
than as part of a ruler’s administrative
duties. The development of hospitals was
encouraged in India by a large number of
Iranian doctors who migrated here in the
reign of Akabr. Through them the number of
hospitals increased in his and in succeeding
reigns. Both (Ayurvedic) vaidyas and (Unani)
hakims were employed in these bimaristans
(hospital’s), suggesting that there was
recognition on the part of the hakims of the
merits of the other system. The most
important Muslim medical text produced in
India, Miyan Bhowa’s Madan – ul – shifa
Sikandarshahi (The Mine of Medicine of King
Sikander), completed in A.D. 1512 and
dedicated to the Sultan of Delhi, Sikander
Lodi, fully recognized that the Unani system
in its pure form did not suit local
conditions, because the climate was
different and many Unain drungs were hardly
obtainable in India. On the other hand,
Indian medicine knew of many drugs equally
efficacious but not recognized in the Unani
system. The practitioners of the two systems
seem to have collaborated because each had
much to learn from the other and further
improved their own respective systems this
way.
Today, the Unani system of medicine is
practiced in India. Thanks to the pioneering
work and research of a charitable
organization Hamdard and various Tibbiya
colleges located throughout the country,
this system of medicine is in no danger of
going into oblivion. |
