Speciality of Ayurveda

October 1, 2016 | Dr. Madhu

·         Ayurveda is a traditional science for treating the patients equipping the body for fighting the diseases or physiological abnormality.

·         Ayurvedic drug preparation processes have traditional technology and traditional message in them

·         In the ayurvedic drugs, not only the active principles play the curative role but also other principles have very important role in building the health of the patient, for preparing the body to fight against the health problems.

·         It may not be the same active principle in the raw drug working in the body when the kashaya, lehya, ghrutha and so on, are prepared from the raw drugs.

·         Multiple chemical changes are possible in the final drug formulations/ products when raw drugs are heated/ processed at various temperatures, for different duration, with or without other (raw drug) ingredients.

·         Pyrolitic and hydrolytic changes are taking place in majority of the processes at various conditions adopted for the production of the drugs.

·         Maturity, storage, stage of collection, processing, etc ( in short each and every unit operation ) will influence various components of the raw drugs and also the final products.

·         Tracing one active principle in the raw drug may not be a very effective method to understand ayurveda, because the curative action may be due to the aggregate molecules of different nature, some of them may even be artifacts ( newly created during the processing.)

·         Arriving at a ‘standard’ for the formal products, may not be possible by tracing the analyzing methods adopted for modern drugs. It may be possible to some extent only by adopting the a pathway to arrive at the quality of the products prepared by traditional methods and comparing it with the market samples.

·         Products prepared using the traditional raw drugs may give a product having different composition from that produced using the extracts of the respective raw drugs.

·         The health conditions/ age/sex/body conditions etc., of the patients will have a strong bearing on the action of the ayurvedic drug on different patients. Hence in ancient times, drugs were prepared according to the health, age, sex, physiological conditions, etc of the patient. Rarely the same product is prescribed for all type patients having the same / similar diseases, even though the name of the drug will remain the same (composition may significantly vary).

·         The clinical studies adopted for the modern drugs cannot be duplicated for the ayurvedic drugs, because in the former generally a single chemical, is present Tracing a single component from a multiple drug system is not possible in ayurveda.

·         The thridosha siddhanta and its applications are the core of ayurveda, whereas in the modern medicine such principles are not significant nor existing.

·         Pathyas are important in ayurvedic treatments

·         Not merely curing a disease but improving the health is the prime target of Ayurveda.

·         Destroying the pathogenic organisms is not sometime adopted but preparing the body to accomodate the pathogenic organism is also one of the targets.

·         Always positive thinking and optimism are the other two conditions stressed in ayurveda.

·         Thus Ayurveda is Ayurveda which cannot be compared with any branch of existing medical science