My Great Endeavors : Unani

Introduction

What is it and what are the principles? It has it's own diagnoses, prevention, treatments, and therapies. Who created it and how long it been around? Why is it criticized? How's it doing in this day and age?

Definition

It's a type of Islamic medince created by Persians. Muslim doctors learned a lot from older civilizations and improved upon it. The foundation of this medicine is Greek. The word Yunani means Greek in Arabic.

Principles

Akhlat

Mizaj

Arkan

Arwah

Aza

Quwa

Afaal

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Diagnoses

Pulse

Physical Examination: The way person looks can give insight on his/her disease.

Urine Analysis: It can give information on how much of certain nutrients someone has.

Stool Analysis: Same as b4, but can also tell them about diet.

Prevention

"Factors such as air, food and drinks; physical health and repose; mental health and repose; sleep and wakefulness; and evacuation and retention need to be kept in proper balance to prevent illness."

"Different lifestyles schedules, dietary modifications, regimens, and even drugs have been recommended to accomplish the objective of health promotion and disease prevention. Prevention of full-blown disease by recognizing it through early disease precursors and starting care at this stage is also one of the approaches for disease prevention described in classical Unani texts." Examining the humors may lead to disease prevention.

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Treatments

Izalae Sabab (elimination of cause)

By getting rid of the cause of disease you get rid of all the symptoms. If you only treat the symptoms the disease will neva go away.

Tadeele Akhlat (normalization of humor)

Sum diseases come from imbalanced humors, so once you balance them the disease will go away.

Tadeele Aza (normalization of tissues and organs)

Some diseases come from nutrient deficiencies. So once you fix that the disease will go away.

90% of the drugs are herbal. The rest is mineral and animal.

Therapies

Ùijäma

Dalk

Ta’léq

Fañd

Ishäl

Qay

Idrär-i Bawl

Ùuqna

Äbzan

Ùammäm

Naöül

Takméd

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History

Persian doctors learned about medicine from studying Hippocrates and Galen. Avicenna is the father of Unani. He wrote the Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine. The first book was very philosophical and the second book was studied in European universities for centuries. Abu Bakr al-Razi had a big impact on Unani. He was the first person to do psychotherapy and he discovered psychology. He wrote a book describing small pox and the measles. He also contributed to pharmacy by creating "mortars, flasks, spatulas, and phials" and came up with medical ethics. The Comprehensive Book on Medicine was created by him. It is 23 volumes!!!!!! He wrote many other books as well.

Unani was brought 2 India about 900 years ago when the Delhi Sultanate started. Alauddin Khalji was the king that made Unani popular in India. After that, scholars wrote books about it. Then Unani got influenced by Ayurveda during the Mughal Empire.

Criticisms

It lacks standardization, integration, and it lacks scientific research. Some of the medicine has heavy metals in them. Heavy metals can cause a disease. I think doctors are trying to standardize it now. Many people see it as a pseudoscience.

Present Day

This form of medicine is popular in India and Central Asia. There are many colleges that teach Unani. The herbs are very effective. Some of them protect the brain, anti-inflammatory, apoptogenic, lowers cholesterol, helps certain body systems, etc. Many diseases were cured by Unani.

Conclusion

Unani is Islamic medicine and it has been around 4 ova a millennium! There are 7 principles and 4 diagnoses. It tries to prevent diseases via diet and other means. It has effective therapies and treatments. Some of the drugs have heavy metal in them, so be careful. It has sum criticisms, but it is very effective @ curing chronic diseases.