UNNANI MEDICINE HISTORY AND PRINCIPLE

1. UNANI MEDICINE

2. INTRODUCTION
Unani medicine, also called Unani tibb, Arabian
medicine, or Islamic medicine, a traditional system of healing
and health maintenance observed in South Asia. The origins of
Unani medicine are found in the doctrines of the ancient
Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen. As a field, it was later
developed and refined through systematic experiment by the
Arabs, most prominently by Muslim scholar-
physician Avicenna. During the Caliphate (the political-
religious Muslim state that began in 632 CE), the bulk of Greek
knowledge was translated into Arabic, part of that knowledge
being the principles of medicine. Hakim Ajmal Khan (1868-
1927 AD) pioneered research in Unani Medicine with
modern scientific parameters in the 1920s. With
additional contributions of medical wisdom from other parts
of the Middle East and South Asia, Unani medicine came to be
known also as Arabian, or Islamic medicine.

3. In the 1930s Indian-born scientist Salimuzzaman Siddiqui, who
specialized in phytochemistry (the chemistry of plants), isolated
potent constituents from a plant known in India as chhota
chand (Rauwolfia serpentina).
Principles of Unani medicine
The history of Unani medicine can be characterized by the work
of its practitioners, or hakims, who relied on natural healing
based on principles of harmony and balance, uniting the
physical, mental, and spiritual realms.
Al-Umoor al-tabiyah: basic physiological principles
According to practitioners of Unani medicine, the health
of the human body is maintained by the harmonious
arrangement of al-umoor al-tabiyah, the seven basic
physiological principles of the Unani doctrine.

4. These principles include
(1)arkan, or elements,
(2) mizaj, or temperament,
(3) akhlat, or bodily humours,
(4) aaza, or organs and systems,
(5) arwah, or vital spirit,
(6) quwa, or faculties or powers, and
(7) afaal, or functions.
Interacting with each other, these seven natural
components maintain the balance in the natural constitution
of the human body. Each individual’s constitution has a self-
regulating capacity or power, called tabiyat (or mudabbira-e-
badan; vis medicatrix naturae in Latin), or to keep the seven
components in equilibrium.

5. Arkan and mizaj: elements and temperament
As four simple, indivisible entities—
arz (earth), maa (water), nar (fire), and hawa (air)—arkan not
only constitutes the primary components of the human body
but also makes up all other creations in the universe.
There are predictable consequences to the actions and
interactions (imtizaj) of the four arkan. As these elements act
upon and react with each other, they continually undergo
change into various states of “genesis and lysis” (generation
and deterioration), due to ulfat-e-keemiyah (acceptance of a
medicine by the body) and nafarat-e-keemiyah (rejection of a
medicine). Skilled hakims claim that they can perceive,
recognize, and observe such states.

6. The four essential mizaj (temperaments) are hot,
cold, moist, and dry. Four more are compounded of those
single temperaments—namely, hot and dry, hot and moist,
cold and dry, and cold and moist.
Possessed in different proportion, mizaj is balanced
by all entities in the cosmos, including all plants, minerals,
and animals. The equilibrium of the individual’s elemental
combination and resulting mizaj, as determined by tabiyat,
provides a stable constitution to that individual—in other
words, health. Just as elemental balance keeps an individual
in a healthy state, changes in natural temperament cause
the health of an individual to suffer.
Therefore, mizaj plays a pivotal role in Unani in
characterizing a person’s normal state (physical, mental, and
social), as well as the nature of a disease

7. Doctrine of akhlat
Hippocrates propounded the doctrine of fluids,
or humours, of the body, and he categorized the humours into four
groups based on their colour. These groups were refined by Galen
and later by Avicenna.
They appear in Unani practice
as dam (blood), balgham (phlegm), safra (yellow bile),
and sauda (black bile). The human dispositions corresponding to
these humours are, respectively, sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric,
and melancholic. Each person is considered to have a specific
humoral makeup, determined by the predominance of a
given humour in his or her constitution. The quality and quantity of
the humours in an individual—a person’s unique, proper, and
proportionate humoral makeup—is said to guarantee health.
Conditions other than this balance signal ailment or disease.

8. The theory of humours (nazaria-e-akhlat), which is the
essence of the practice of Unani medicine, holds that the four
humours are derived from and utilized in the digestive process.
Their continuous action and reaction results in the breakdown
of complex macromolecules into simpler molecules, which are
then incorporated throughout the body in the form of fluid.
These humours, the akhlat, suffuse the body’s cells,
interstitial spaces, and vascular channels, affecting physical and
behavioral well-being, and are most stable in a healthy
individual.

9. Relationship between tabiyat and asbab-e-sittah-zarooriah
In the Unani system of medicine, tabiyat is an
individual’s internal power or capacity to withstand or combat
disease and to perform normal physiological functions.
Believing that it is only tabiyat that is engaged in actually
curing a disease, Unani hakims hold that they only assist from
“outside” by prescribing therapeutic relief.
Unani medicine recognizes six physical, or external,
factors, called asbab-e-sittah-zarooriah, which are essential in
establishing a synchronized biological rhythm and thus living a
balanced existence. The six asbab-e-sittah-zarooriah are:

10. 1.Hawa (air), in which the quality of the air a person breathes is
thought to have a direct effect on his or her temperament and, thus,
health.
2.Makool-wo-mashroob (food and drink)
3.Harkat-wo-sakoon-e-jismiah (bodily exercise and repose)
4.Harkat-o-sakoon nafsaniah (mental work and rest) Unani medicine
holds that the human mind and brain need adequate stimulation and
proper relaxation as well.
5.Naum-o-yaqzah (sleep and wakefulness)
6.Ihtebas and istifragh (retention and excretion) Therefore, to
maintain a harmonic and synchronized tabiyat, certain beneficial end-
products of kaun-o-fasad (genesis and lysis) are retained in the body
while harmful ones are expelled.

11. Modes of treatment
The initial approach to treatment in the Unani system entails the
establishment of a regimen to normalize and balance the external factors
(e.g., air, water, and food) involved in ailments and diseases. If this proves
inadequate, then other means, such as treatment with natural
medicines, may be recommended.
Any Unani treatment prescribed by a hakim acts as an outside
agent to help boost the patient’s tabiyat and thus restore good health
and a sense of well-being.
There are various therapeutic approaches available to the hakim
Ilaj-bi-ghiza, or diettherapy
ilaj-bi-misla, or organotherapy
Ilaj-bi-dawa, or pharmacotherapy

12. Classical Unani medicine recommended established “regimental” therapies
(tadabeer) in the treatment of various chronic and acute diseases.
Those therapies include
dalak (massage),
hammam (bath and sauna),
karat (exercise),
fasd (venesection, or opening a vein to let out blood),
hijamat (cupping, a process of drawing blood to the surface of the body by
using a glass cup or tube),
amat-e-kai (leeching, or bleeding a person by using leeches).
The essential function of all those regimens is to remove impure
blood or impurities from the body.
Surgical interventions, or ilaj-bil-yad, are a last resort. Their practice
generally is beyond the realm of the hakim’s expertise.