Modern medicine methods are normal in the West, but there are many places in the world where they are not used.
However, people who live in these places live long and healthy lives. How is this possible?
Perhaps the most important answer is the use of traditional medicine and a healthy eating lifestyle.
Traditional medicine achieves many of the benefits of modern medical methods, but at the same time, it tries to improve the patient’s health in a more comprehensive and sustainable way. These approaches have been tried and tested over thousands of years.
In particular, Unani Medicine is a particular branch of traditional/herbal medicine practiced in South and Central Asia.
It is a rich field of medicine, and we can see this in the origin of the word ‘Unani’. The word ‘Unaia’ refers to the Greeks: the intellectual foundations of Unai were founded by ancient doctors Hyprocrattes and Galen.
These were then built on by heavyweights in the Islamic Golden Age, such as Ibn Sina*. His book, ‘Al-Qanun fil-Tibb’, developed the Unani tradition further.
The Unani system of medicine follows many similar principles to herbal care, but is slightly different.
Herbal care focuses on using plant materials as ingredients in remedies. On the other hand, Unani medicine does use plants in a medical way, but it is broader. The system tries to ensure the long-term, holistic health of the patient. Because of this, for example, dietotherapy is an important of the process, not just pharmacotherapy.
Since these methods have been used for such a long time, we can be sure that they do not carry unwelcome long-term effects. All of the medicines are composed of ingredients that our body is designed to be exposed to.
* Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn Ibn Sina, more commonly known in Europe as Avicenna, was a Persian Polymath. His medical research contributed greatly to the development of Unani medicine. He was born in modern day Uzbekistan in the 10th century.
Although he wrote over 150 works in the areas of Philosophy, Astronomy, Mathematics and Theology, arguably his most important contribution was in medicine. Ibn Sina wrote the pre-eminent medical encyclopaedia ‘Al-Qanun fil-Tibb’ (The Cannon of Medicine), the most comprehensive medical work of its time. After its translation into Latin in the 12th century, it became the foremost medical textbook, and was used in medieval universities right up until the 18th century. It is from this work that the Unani tradition grew from.