© S.E. Kashnitsky
© AST Publishing House LLC
Review
Traditional medicine is a vast and multifaceted phenomenon. In the new book by S.E. Kashnitsky "Pearls of Oriental Medicine" an attempt was made to give the widest possible overview of the various methods of traditional medicine - as a rule, tested and proven in practice. The authors of these methods are doctors, often famous and titled, but also healers who pass on valuable folk experience. A special place is given in the book to the methods of Oriental medicine - an ancient science, rediscovered by Europeans in the last century. All this variety of approaches to treatment in the book is systematized, which allows you to quickly find the required method of assistance for various diseases.
However, in the practical use of the recipes given in the book, reasonable prudence is necessary: each organism is individual; what is good for one is not always acceptable for another. Therefore, anyone who dares to use prescriptions as recommendations must certainly coordinate them with the attending physician. Only in this case the risk of thoughtless self-treatment will be minimized.
Professor, Doctor of Biological Sciences A.P. Dubrov
Part 1. At the origins of wisdom
Chapter 1. Facing the East: Encyclopedia of Oriental Medicine
The interest of Europeans in the East is probably as eternal as this conditional division into West and East itself, which has little to do with geography. Starting, probably, with the Greco-Persian wars, our ancient countrymen understood: there, in the East, there is some other civilization. It cannot be said that it is more or less developed. She is different, and this already explains the inexhaustible interest in her. Neither the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, nor the caravan trade with the Caliphate, nor the adventures of the Crusaders, nor the colonial conquests of European maritime powers, ever satisfied this burning interest, this eternal mystery of the East.
Kipling's phrase: "The West is the West, the East is the East, and together they cannot come together" with formulaic brevity establishes the relationship of two cultures with their dialectical balance of attraction and repulsion.
In addition to gunpowder, paper, silk and spices, Europeans brought from the East an unusual system of ideas about a person and his health. There was a concept of "Oriental medicine", which does not have a clear semantic outline, about which only one thing can be most accurately said: a different medicine.
It was created and developed over the centuries in Persia and Arabia, Tibet and Central Asia, India and China... And in even greater, almost invisible antiquity, probably in Egypt and Sumer, Assyria and Babylon, Phenicia and the Hittite state...
The East is so vast and irreducible to one thing that it is not possible not only to give it and, accordingly, Eastern medicine, a clear definition, but even to confidently identify the principles that distinguish it from the European medicine we are used to.
The Korean would answer this question with something different, and the Filipino would have something completely different.
Nevertheless, let us try, at least in the most general terms, to outline the features of that incomprehensible concept, which can be called oriental medicine very conditionally.
The ancient philosophers, observing how everything is interconnected in nature, considered the Creator's separation of light from darkness and the earth's firmament from water as a decisive event. Two pairs of opposites set four categories, or "elements" that underlie the universe.
The life-giving energy is called chi (or qi) in Chinese philosophy, prana in Indian philosophy, and pneuma in Persian. All these words are synonymous with the word “air” that is familiar to us, inhaling which a person receives energy for life. Qigong therapy, prana-yama are systems of respiratory gymnastics that allow you to harmonize the body only due to the correct distribution of energy through it. Biologically active points, united in meridians, are the channels through which the energy of the surrounding world enters the body. This is already an approach radically different from that adopted in the West.
The macrocosm (stars and planets) is similar to the microcosm (nuclei of atoms and elementary particles), just as a person is similar to the Creator-Creator, but consists of dust, that is, chemical elements. The changing macrocosm will certainly change the microcosm - these relationships are studied by astrology. But vice versa: changes in the microcosm entail changes in the macrocosm - this is studied by magic. In the same way, a changing world changes a person - these relationships are monitored by medicine (of course, Eastern).
Everything, including the human body, consists of four primary elements - fire (hot), water (cold), earth (dry) and air (wet). Divided according to tastes: fire is bitter, pungent and salty, water is sour or tasteless, earth is astringent, air is slimy. The basis of the color spectrum: fire - red, water - white, earth - brown, air - blue.
Human life is also divided into phases corresponding to the four primary elements: a newborn comes out of the water, a child swims in the air, a fire burns in a young man, an old man shrinks like earth.
The same four elements determine the temperaments, the doctrine of which the Greek Hippocrates and the Roman Galen borrowed from the East. There are four fluids in a person: bile (or cholius) - fire, lymph (or phlegm) - water, black bile (or melancholius) - earth, blood (or sangvus) - air.
Accordingly, spicy, bitter and salty foods are more suitable for explosive choleric people; lethargic phlegmatic people prefer cold, wet, sour food; restrained melancholics, old people from their youth, will choose dry and sweet foods, such as dried fruits; cheerful, "childish" sanguine people - fatty, oily food.
This is how the layout of the primary elements, in itself, indicates to us the patterns of healthy eating that underlie oriental medicine (which will be discussed in more detail below).
Exactly in accordance with the same logic, it is better for the choleric to live in the south, the phlegmatic - in the north, the melancholic - in the east and the sanguine - in the west. And it is better for everyone to eat what grows in a suitable area for him - this is how the body adapts, using the leading primary element embedded in it. Violation of this principle leads to diseases and, above all, to allergies, which is a kind of payment for adapting to a foreign element.
Tibetan medicine - the most integral part of Oriental medicine that has been preserved for several millennia - does not recognize surgical intervention in the human body. Only one correct selection of food, minerals, herbs, aromatic substances, Tibetan doctors undertake to solve all the problems of a malfunctioning organism.
Until recently, Tibet was a closed country and there was no access for foreigners. In our country, the existence of Tibetan medicine was known from Buryatia, where it penetrated along with Buddhism in the 17th century. Buryat lamas themselves wrote medical essays on theoretical issues, and also compiled prescription guides, which are practical guidelines for treatment. Today, Tibetan healers move freely around the world and pass on to their students knowledge that was previously considered secret and inaccessible even in Tibet itself.
In our time, Western civilization is experiencing an ecological crisis - a crisis of disturbed relationships between man and nature, when, due to imbalances in the harmonious ratio of primary elements, people in their mass became chronically ill. Under such conditions, a return to the original concepts, attempts to achieve a disturbed balance are quite natural. That is why the whole world today has turned its eyes to the achievements of oriental medicine.
More and more patients come to medical centers where the principles of oriental medicine are applied. More and more pilgrims flock to Asia, to the autochthonous bearers of ancient knowledge. The shelves of bookstores are filled with literature revealing the secrets of oriental medicine.
The information collected in the book is fragmentary: in some regions of the East (Mongolia, Buryatia, Uzbekistan, Tatarstan, Bulgaria, which I also conditionally attribute to the East, since the information received there comes from Turkey, Greece, Byzantium) I happened to visit personally and communicate with figures of ancient medical culture, I met with some interlocutors from China, Taiwan, Korea in other territories. You should also not look for completeness in recipes that help cure ailments. Only those of them are given that were passed on to me by the carriers of this knowledge.
The information contained in my notes is purely practical. I am not trying, like other scientific authors, to explain, for example, the basics of reflexology. But I give the simplest recommendations: massaging which points in which cases will help get rid of the most common ailments.
The recipes of Eastern doctors, as a rule, were taken by me on faith: there was simply no physical opportunity to check everything on myself and loved ones. In those cases where such checks were carried out, I specifically stipulate this. But, I believe, you can trust the information I give in the book: all my interlocutors are people with solid experience in practical work in medicine or healing. In addition, most of the notes were published in the periodical press and had a lot of feedback from readers who were able to use the recipes I cited.
In addition to information from oriental medicine, a lot of information has accumulated about alternative methods of healing and treatment that have practical value. I have separated it into a separate part of the book. The book also contains specific recipes for the treatment of diseases by folk methods for the convenience of readers, arranged in alphabetical order.
In conclusion, I would like to thank all my interlocutors who disinterestedly shared their knowledge with me and readers. Special thanks to Professor Ivan Pavlovich Neumyvakin, chief physician of the Tibetan clinic "Naran" in Moscow, Svetlana Galsanovna Choyzhinimaeva and an employee of the Bukhara Medical Institute Inom Dzhuraevich Karomatov, who devoted long hours to useful and interesting conversations with me about oriental medicine.
Middle East and Central Asia
Everyone must have heard this name. But few people know anything specific about this person. Medieval Arab thinker. Philosopher, physician, musician. So after all then all outstanding people were encyclopedists.
Abu Ali ibn Sina (in Latin pronunciation - Avicenna) during the period of the Arabic Renaissance continued the traditions of Aristotle and the Neoplatonists, left to descendants about 50 works on medicine, 30 of which have survived to this day. Among them is the Canon of Medical Science, which until the 17th century was the main medical aid for European doctors. And then Avicenna was forgotten for many centuries. Rather, the name remained, but Avicenna's prescriptions disappeared from the medical arsenal.
Meanwhile, it is still modern today. And we - instead of grabbing a pill for any reason - can use the wisdom of the Arab genius. You just need to learn to understand it.
A thousand years ago, when Avicenna lived and worked, dead matter in the form of chemical additives was not included in the composition of medicines. Those thousands of recipes that the Arab doctor left us contain only natural ingredients of plant, animal and mineral origin. These recipes are by no means abstract mental constructions, they were personally tested by Avicenna and other famous doctors. And since much of the knowledge of that era has been lost, the verification and search for correspondence between the former names of the components and the current ones continues today.
Then they set about solving the problems of "translating" his recipes into the language of modern herbal medicine. This is not always easy: sometimes the meaning of some names is lost. They have to be restored using context or a general understanding of the qualities that are required to achieve the desired effect.
For example, many of Avicenna's recipes use the term pulegium mint. What it is? Let us turn to the first book of the Canon, where all varieties of mint are given. In particular, in the section "Fudanaj" it is indicated that pulegic mint consists of a rarefied substance, drives sweat, dries and warms a lot. It is already clear that we are talking about the expansion of blood vessels. The sum of all the properties mentioned can be found among known identical plants. Specifically, we need mint with a high menthol content. Or catnip, together with lemon balm (lemon mint), obviously overlapping the properties that mint, including pulegium, can differ in.
Having found such a replacement, you can “modernize”, for example, Avicenna’s most important recipe for removing kidney stones, which has one hundred percent efficiency.
How to get kidney stones out. Avicenna recipe
They take one part of lavender flowers, two parts of mountain thyme (Avicenna has thyme), two parts of strawberry leaves and berries, one part of lemon balm, two parts of catnip and two parts of mint (all these plants, as a rule, are available in the summer cottage, the missing ones can be find in a pharmacy or store). All this is mixed, a teaspoon of the plant mixture is poured with a glass of boiling water and infused for 10-15 minutes. The infusion is drunk like tea. Thyme and strawberry crush stones, turning them into sand, but do not drive them along the excretory paths, lavender relieves inflammation, and mint, lemon balm and catnip drive the resulting mucus down. They drink the infusion, all the time looking through the morning urine: already a week after the start of the reception, it becomes cloudy (mucus goes), then grains of sand appear. Continue treatment from two months to a year until the urine becomes clear. The great advantage of this method is that the stone will not go through the ducts, causing excruciating pain.
Studying Avicenna's recipes in practice, the researchers were convinced that they are very strong, designed for patients with a greater margin of health than current people. Apparently, a thousand years ago, the immune system was stronger, and a person reacted perfectly to the active effects of drugs. We must make allowances for the changed ecological situation and the greater vulnerability of our body.
So, for example, one should be wary of the recommendation of treating men with St. John's wort. This very popular herb is purely female, men should not use it for longer than two weeks: impotence may occur. And we are used to thinking that all herbs have only a weak, barely noticeable effect on the body.
A very common disease is otitis media (inflammation of the middle ear). It causes a lot of trouble with acute pain, possible complications. Doctors often prescribe antibiotics for otitis media. Meanwhile, Avicenna teaches how to easily and harmlessly deal with this disease.
How to get rid of otitis. Avicenna recipe
Take almonds. If bitter, wild, two cores are enough, if sweet, four cores. They are crushed in a mortar. Add a pinch of Ceylon or Chinese cinnamon, a pinch of soda and 1 drop of essential rose oil. All this is connected with half a teaspoon of thick honey - a paste is obtained, which should be stored in the cold. A drop of vinegar is dropped onto a piece of paste the size of a pea - in the presence of soda, a hiss occurs. The reaction of soda with vinegar allows almonds to release phytoncides, due to which it is in the most active phase. In this state, you can’t store the drug for the future: the reaction has to be repeated before each new use. A hissing "pea" is placed in a sore ear, plugged with cotton wool and kept for an hour. 3-4 such procedures a day for several days will lead to a complete recovery. Moreover, the pain in the ear is removed from the second time.
In the "Canon" there are three recipes for the treatment of inflammation of the ear. Those elements that are repeated in all three are selected: almonds, soda, honey. And the main principle: soda and vinegar balance each other. Rose oil is taken from the first recipe, Chinese cinnamon is taken from the third. Thanks to this, it was possible to bypass galban, which grows only in Africa (experimentally convinced that the drug is quite effective even without galban). Saffron, mentioned by Avicenna, is replaced by cinnamon. There is nowhere to get myrrh now, poppy, which is a drug, is unacceptable as a sleeping pill.
Infusion on pomegranate peels for stomach ulcers
A medieval physician gave us a recipe for getting rid of stomach and duodenal ulcers. Take sweet pomegranate peels (sweet pomegranate seeds are maroon in color) and sour pomegranate peels (light pink grains). Pomegranate peels can be replaced with cypress cones. It is convenient to grind any of the selected substances in a coffee grinder or with a meat grinder. Pour it with red wine, heated to 50-60 °, in a ratio of 1:10 and insist for 2 weeks in a tightly closed vessel in a warm place without access to light. Then the pulp is separated, the wine is filtered and drunk 30 g on an empty stomach and twice a day before meals. The duration of treatment depends on the size of the ulcer (an ulcer with a diameter of a penny coin is delayed for a month). With increased acidity, the wine should be dessert, with low acidity, it should be dry. Healing will be faster if the wine does not contain a preservative added to better preserve the drink (such wine can be purchased in high season in wine-growing areas or use home-made wine).
A replacement for this recipe: long, chewing on a cypress cone, until the ulcer heals.
Avicenna's recipe for longevity
Avicenna's recipes do not lose their relevance today. It remains only to regret that the rejection of the teachings of the brilliant physician by the Catholic Inquisition led in the middle of the 17th century to the complete rejection of Avicenna's heritage by European medicine and the oblivion of many of his works.
The restoration of this heritage is a long, painstaking work, but quite real. It is only important not to drown in theorizing and check each recipe in practice.
Avicenna considered the art of maintaining health to be the main business of his life. Moreover, it is not an art that prevents death, saves the body from external disasters, or guarantees the body a very long life. The task of this art is much more modest, but at the same time extremely important: to provide protection from damage to the moisture contained within the body.
Before the onset of natural death, according to Avicenna, this is a means of preserving the human body. It is entrusted to two forces: the natural, nourishing and providing a substitute for what disappears from the body, and the force that makes the pulse beat.
This task is achieved by observing three modes:
Replacement of moisture disappearing from the body;
Prevention of the causes that cause and accelerate the drying of the body;
Protection of the moisture present in the body from decay.
The main thing in the art of maintaining health is to balance seven factors: nature, physical and mental movement (that is, sleep and wakefulness), choice of drink and food, cleansing the body of excess, maintaining a correct physique, improving the air exhaled through the nose, adapting clothing to the needs of the body.
Newborn Health Bookmark Recipe
After the baby is born, the umbilical cord is cut and tied with clean wool. To strengthen the skin, the child's body is doused with lightly salted water. Before swaddling him, you should lightly touch the baby's body with your fingertips and wrinkle him slightly. Put the baby to sleep in a room with moderate air temperature. In summer, the baby is bathed with moderately warm water, in winter - moderately hot. It is best to start bathing after a long sleep.
Let first, for a week or two, the child is breastfed not by the mother, but by the nurse, until the mother's nature is balanced after childbirth. A nursing mother or another woman should not, according to Avicenna, succumb to such emotional reactions as anger, sadness, fear, so that the baby does not absorb information that spoils nature with milk. To strengthen the child's nature, light swaying, music, and singing are very good. It is desirable that the mother sing more often (regardless of her skill and assessment of the quality of this singing by herself and those around her): maternal singing is in any case healing for the nature of the child.
The baby should be breastfed for two years.
The little man should be protected by all possible means from intense anger, fright, sadness and insomnia. It is necessary to give him what he wants, and to remove from him what he does not like.
Traditional medicine is a vast and multifaceted phenomenon. In the new book by S.E. Kashnitsky "Pearls of Oriental Medicine" an attempt was made to give the widest possible overview of the various methods of traditional medicine - as a rule, tested and proven in practice. The authors of these methods are doctors, often famous and titled, but also healers who pass on valuable folk experience. A special place is given in the book to the methods of Oriental medicine - an ancient science, rediscovered by Europeans in the last century. All this variety of approaches to treatment in the book is systematized, which allows you to quickly find the required method of assistance for various diseases.
However, in the practical use of the recipes given in the book, reasonable prudence is necessary: each organism is individual; what is good for one is not always acceptable for another. Therefore, anyone who dares to use prescriptions as recommendations must certainly coordinate them with the attending physician. Only in this case the risk of thoughtless self-treatment will be minimized.
Professor,
Doctor of Biological Sciences
A.P. Dubrov
Part 1. At the origins of wisdom
Chapter 1. Facing the East: Encyclopedia of Oriental Medicine
The interest of Europeans in the East is probably as eternal as this conditional division into West and East itself, which has little to do with geography. Starting, probably, with the Greco-Persian wars, our ancient countrymen understood: there, in the East, there is some other civilization. It cannot be said that it is more or less developed. She is different, and this already explains the inexhaustible interest in her. Neither the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, nor the caravan trade with the Caliphate, nor the adventures of the Crusaders, nor the colonial conquests of European maritime powers, ever satisfied this burning interest, this eternal mystery of the East.
Kipling's phrase: "The West is the West, the East is the East, and together they cannot come together" with formulaic brevity establishes the relationship of two cultures with their dialectical balance of attraction and repulsion.
In addition to gunpowder, paper, silk and spices, Europeans brought from the East an unusual system of ideas about a person and his health. There was a concept of "Oriental medicine", which does not have a clear semantic outline, about which only one thing can be most accurately said: a different medicine.
It was created and developed over the centuries in Persia and Arabia, Tibet and Central Asia, India and China... And in even greater, almost invisible antiquity, probably in Egypt and Sumer, Assyria and Babylon, Phenicia and the Hittite state...
The East is so vast and irreducible to one thing that it is not possible not only to give it and, accordingly, Eastern medicine, a clear definition, but even to confidently identify the principles that distinguish it from the European medicine we are used to. The Korean would answer this question with something different, and the Filipino would have something completely different.
Nevertheless, let us try, at least in the most general terms, to outline the features of that incomprehensible concept, which can be called oriental medicine very conditionally.
The ancient philosophers, observing how everything is interconnected in nature, considered the Creator's separation of light from darkness and the earth's firmament from water as a decisive event. Two pairs of opposites set four categories, or "elements" that underlie the universe.
The life-giving energy is called chi (or qi) in Chinese philosophy, prana in Indian philosophy, and pneuma in Persian. All these words are synonymous with the word “air” that is familiar to us, inhaling which a person receives energy for life. Qigong therapy, prana-yama are systems of respiratory gymnastics that allow you to harmonize the body only due to the correct distribution of energy through it. Biologically active points, united in meridians, are the channels through which the energy of the surrounding world enters the body. This is already an approach radically different from that adopted in the West.
The macrocosm (stars and planets) is similar to the microcosm (nuclei of atoms and elementary particles), just as a person is similar to the Creator-Creator, but consists of dust, that is, chemical elements. The changing macrocosm will certainly change the microcosm - these relationships are studied by astrology. But vice versa: changes in the microcosm entail changes in the macrocosm - this is studied by magic. In the same way, a changing world changes a person - these relationships are monitored by medicine (of course, Eastern).
Everything, including the human body, consists of four primary elements - fire (hot), water (cold), earth (dry) and air (wet). Divided according to tastes: fire is bitter, pungent and salty, water is sour or tasteless, earth is astringent, air is slimy. The basis of the color spectrum: fire - red, water - white, earth - brown, air - blue.
Human life is also divided into phases corresponding to the four primary elements: a newborn comes out of the water, a child swims in the air, a fire burns in a young man, an old man shrinks like earth.
The same four elements determine the temperaments, the doctrine of which the Greek Hippocrates and the Roman Galen borrowed from the East. There are four fluids in a person: bile (or cholius) - fire, lymph (or phlegm) - water, black bile (or melancholius) - earth, blood (or sangvus) - air.
Accordingly, spicy, bitter and salty foods are more suitable for explosive choleric people; lethargic phlegmatic people prefer cold, wet, sour food; restrained melancholics, old people from youth, will choose dry and sweet foods, such as dried fruits; cheerful, "childish" sanguine - fatty, oily food
This is how the layout of the primary elements, in itself, indicates to us the patterns of healthy eating that underlie oriental medicine (which will be discussed in more detail below).
Exactly in accordance with the same logic, it is better for the choleric to live in the south, the phlegmatic - in the north, the melancholic - in the east and the sanguine - in the west. And it is better for everyone to eat what grows in a suitable area for him - this is how the body adapts, using the leading primary element embedded in it. Violation of this principle leads to diseases and, above all, to allergies, which is a kind of payment for adapting to a foreign element.
Tibetan medicine - the most integral part of Oriental medicine that has been preserved for several millennia - does not recognize surgical intervention in the human body. Only one correct selection of food, minerals, herbs, aromatic substances, Tibetan doctors undertake to solve all the problems of a malfunctioning organism.
Until recently, Tibet was a closed country and there was no access for foreigners. In our country, the existence of Tibetan medicine was known from Buryatia, where it penetrated along with Buddhism in the 17th century. Buryat lamas themselves wrote medical essays on theoretical issues, and also compiled prescription guides, which are practical guidelines for treatment. Today, Tibetan healers move freely around the world and pass on to their students knowledge that was previously considered secret and inaccessible even in Tibet itself.
In our time, Western civilization is experiencing an ecological crisis - a crisis of disturbed relationships between man and nature, when, due to imbalances in the harmonious ratio of primary elements, people in their mass became chronically ill. Under such conditions, a return to the original concepts, attempts to achieve a disturbed balance are quite natural. That is why the whole world today has turned its eyes to the achievements of oriental medicine.
More and more patients come to medical centers where the principles of oriental medicine are applied. More and more pilgrims flock to Asia, to the autochthonous bearers of ancient knowledge. The shelves of bookstores are filled with literature revealing the secrets of oriental medicine.
The sophisticated reader knows that on the bookshelves you can find many reference books on oriental medicine. However, few people know that such publications are compiled on the basis of two or three outdated printed sources that have long lost their relevance. The book you hold in your hands is unique in its content. The copy-books collected in it were not copied from old books. These original and surprisingly effective recipes have been handed down orally from teacher to student for centuries and were not intended for widespread use. All of them were collected in remote regions during search expeditions by Savely Kashnitsky. Shocking in their effectiveness, the results of many medicinal prescriptions, the author had the opportunity to observe with his own eyes directly during the practice of healers. The book includes hundreds of original recipes and recommendations collected during expeditions to the Middle East and Central Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Tatarstan, Bulgaria, China and the Far East....
Read completelyThe sophisticated reader knows that on the bookshelves you can find many reference books on oriental medicine. However, few people know that such publications are compiled on the basis of two or three outdated printed sources that have long lost their relevance. The book you hold in your hands is unique in its content. The copy-books collected in it were not copied from old books. These original and surprisingly effective recipes have been handed down orally from teacher to student for centuries and were not intended for widespread use. All of them were collected in remote regions during search expeditions by Savely Kashnitsky. Shocking in their effectiveness, the results of many medicinal prescriptions, the author had the opportunity to observe with his own eyes directly during the practice of healers. The book includes hundreds of original recipes and recommendations collected during expeditions to the Middle East and Central Asia, Tibet, Mongolia, Tatarstan, Bulgaria, China and the Far East. This manual is not a textbook on medicine, all the recommendations given in it should be used only after agreement with the attending physician. Reviewer Professor, Doctor of Biological Sciences A.P. Dubrov.
HideSavely Kashnitsky - writer and journalist, actively promoted socionics in newspapers and magazines at the dawn of perestroika, author of a number of socionic publications abroad - in Israel, Canada, the USA. His book " Pearls of Eastern medicine"will allow readers to get acquainted with the unique recipes of practicing healers of the East.
Diabetes mellitus, which has imperceptibly moved into the ranks of the most common diseases of civilized mankind, from the point of view of Tibetan medicine, is not even a disease, but a violation of the harmony between the body and the environment.
The approach to treatment depends on the constitution of the person. And she, according to Tibetan ideas, is divided into three types: wind, mucus and bile. Therefore, before you start treating diabetes, you should determine your constitutional type and, depending on it, adjust your lifestyle.
The type of mucus is most suitable for people who are good-natured, loose, prone to fullness, calm, inertial, even lazy, with whitish skin, edematous and rounded joints, slow action, in whose body there is a lot of lymph (phlegm - in Greek just lymph, mucus ).
The type of bile includes people of dense build, prone to fullness, with a yellowish complexion, by nature they are irritable, unbalanced, emotions, both positive and negative, cause them a violent reaction. It is natural to correlate the Tibetan type of bile with choleric from the classification of Hippocrates-Galen (chole - bile in Greek).
Finally, mobile, cheerful, lean people with a dull complexion, dry hair and skin, active gestures and expressive facial expressions - sanguine people - belong to the wind type. They easily lose energy, but just as easily restore it, they are very reactive and hardy.
All three principles - wind, mucus and bile are present in every person, as long as they are in harmonious balance, a person is healthy. Nerve impulses travel through the body like wind. Blood and various internal secretions are like bile. Hormones and tissue metabolism products resemble mucus. Accordingly, a defect in one of the components not only changes the overall balance, but leads to a certain type of disease: a violation of the wind leads to nervous diseases, a violation of bile - to diseases of the digestive system, a violation of mucus - to diseases of the endocrine and lymphatic systems.
Diabetes mellitus does not occur suddenly, it is the result of regulatory disturbances accumulated by the body for a long time due to poor environmental conditions, stress, malnutrition, and neglect of a healthy lifestyle. Infectious diseases often lead to diabetes. After such frequent and, it would seem, not at all terrible - due to our habit of them - illnesses such as influenza or tonsillitis, an infection can get into the pancreas, which first leads to a disruption in the work of insulin-producing cells, and then to their atrophy, i.e. diabetes.
If a person continues to eat sweet and fried foods, the liver and pancreas wear out, and the activity of food digestion decreases. The accumulation of toxins that do not have time to be excreted from the body leads to the deposition of excess weight - obesity begins. Proteins are under-oxidized, fats are under-dissolved, which corresponds to the internal poison. Due to overeating, biochemical processes are inhibited, dissolved products are absorbed into the blood more slowly, the large intestine cannot cope with the release of solid waste from the digestive process.
Due to the increased release of toxins into the blood, autointoxication occurs, which, in turn, causes stress - a vicious circle occurs.
From the observed first symptoms of diabetes mellitus, suppuration in the corners of the eyes, redness and itching in the perineum, in the elbow and popliteal folds, weakness and sweating, headache, which is to blame for the violation of lymph circulation, may appear. Harbingers of diabetes are barley on the eye, but not one-time, but repeated, or boils and boils that occur again and again and indicate a metabolic disorder. “Signals” that make you think about possible diabetes can be dry lips, night thirst, excess urine, excessively watery and very light.
Diabetes mellitus more often affects people who are overweight, reddish face, angry, as we already know, related to the type of bile. The second most common type of diabetes is mucus. Wind suffers from diabetes much less frequently.
Treatment is carried out taking into account the constitutional type.
Bile is recommended food of bitter, sweet and astringent tastes. Sweet - in the Tibetan sense - is not necessarily the taste of food containing sugar. Sweet means that it tastes good, it is meat, fish, cereals, and nuts. From fresh meat, beef, pork, goat, turkey, chicken are better, but not fatty and not fried. Of the seasonings, the best are horseradish and mustard, which have a choleretic effect, nutmeg, bittersweet sauces. From spices coriander, cinnamon, dill are suitable. The best fruits and berries are quince, sea buckthorn, persimmon, which have an astringent taste. Especially people of this type should be careful not to "jam" stress, often pestering them. Irritability and anger are not a reason for immeasurable absorption of food. Food and drink should be cool, barely warm, but not hot.
People of the mucus type are advised to add salt to food, eat low-fat sour-milk (up to 1% fat) products, but refuse milk. As often as possible, lemon and vinegar should be present in the diet. Instead of sugar, it is better to use soy sauce, if the seasoning is ketchup, then spicy - chili. Sweet - in the Tibetan sense - food is contraindicated: meat, fish, cereals, nuts. But these same products are suitable when seasoned with ginger, red pepper, coriander and cardamom. Vegetables, sour-milk and seafood can be eaten in normal quantities, but meat, fish, cereals - in very small doses. It should be steamed, adding spices on the tip of a knife and avoiding fatty flour sauces. Fried, as well as bread and confectionery should be excluded. Food and drink for such people should be warm, hot, but not cold.
People of the wind type can rarely be among diabetic patients. But in such cases they are advised to eat sweet, salty and spicy foods, pepper, salt, meat, honey are desirable, and it is very important that the food be warm.
How to Lower Blood Cholesterol
5-6 tablespoons of oat grains are thrown into 1 liter of water, boiled for 15-20 minutes and drunk 1 glass a day, after meals. Oatmeal is also good. You should drink for a month, then take an analysis and make sure that your cholesterol level has dropped to normal limits. Oat drinks of this type have a diuretic and expectorant effect, cleanse the blood, blood vessels, kidneys and liver well.
Another healing drink is this. 2 tablespoons of oats are boiled in 200–300 g of water for 5 minutes, after which 2 tablespoons of milk and 2 tablespoons of honey are added and the same amount is boiled. The decoction is drunk 20 minutes before meals 2-3 times a day, 1-2 tablespoons for a month. It is also useful after hepatitis and cholecystitis.
A diabetic patient is recommended freshly squeezed juices of beets, carrots, white cabbage and potatoes in various combinations. Cabbage juice helps to reduce body weight, which is extremely important for diabetes. Carrot juice is the richest source of vitamin A, it also contains potassium, magnesium, calcium, sodium, iron, you can drink it in 50 g (no more, so as not to get carrot hepatitis), in half with beetroot juice. Beetroot juice normalizes blood composition better than others, but it is better to drink it mixed with carrot juice. In violation of the functions of the digestive tract, potato juice is especially useful, which is also better to use mixed with carrot juice.
It is useful to eat beets and carrots, but only in raw form, since, when boiled, these vegetables add carbohydrates to the patient, which are not at all necessary for diabetes. Potatoes are best eaten half-baked - undercooked.
How to prepare healing boiled water. Take 1 liter of clean water and boil it for so long until one quarter of a liter remains - 1 glass. This is the glass they drink. For preventive purposes, from April to December, boiled water can be drunk in the morning before breakfast and in the evening after dinner.
Why, after a long boil, pure water becomes healing is not a secret for Tibetan medical science. It is known that water is an ideal carrier of information. In order for information aimed at healing to penetrate into the body along with water, it is first necessary to free the water from all random information layers. Therefore, water is filtered (or spring water is taken), and then it is boiled for a long time: during boiling, many random structures that can carry unfavorable information are destroyed.
But boiling is only half the battle. Now clean water needs to be charged with positive, useful information for the body. It can be good, kind words or thoughts, wishes of health and longevity to yourself and your loved ones; believers can read a prayer glorifying the Creator (it doesn't matter in what language and in the tradition of which religious denomination).
But the text of an ancient Tibetan prayer, pronounced in a mixture of the Old Tibetan language and Sanskrit, is considered the most powerful means of healing water charging. This prayer is already 4600 years old, Tibetan physicians have been repeatedly convinced of its strength and effectiveness.
To heal the spirit and body, as well as to set for healthy longevity with the help of this Tibetan prayer, it is not at all necessary to be a Buddhist and a believer in general. Prayer acts by the very vibrations of spoken words, even if they are incomprehensible.
After reading the prayer, you should lightly blow on the water, as if informing her of the spoken information. To enhance the action, reading the prayer can be repeated. Water charged in this way is drunk in slow sips. It is also good to wash it. Prayer-charged water helps children especially quickly and noticeably. In addition to healing from existing diseases, this text blocks the arrival of future diseases, which, as is commonly believed, cannot be avoided by an aging organism. Buddhist priests utter the same words at the bedside of a dying person, making it easier for him to spend his last hours in this world.
The prayer has 13 lines. The first seven are the mantra of the eight meditating Buddhas, a code for healing. The final six lines are a code for a long life.
So, here is the text of the Tibetan prayer for charging boiled water for healing and longevity:
Tsanleg Rinchen Sersan Nya en med
Choydag Onchen Manla Shagja tov
Zhachen mongam ensu zogba ey
Dewar Sheshba zhadla chagtsal lo
Dadyata Um in ehanze in ehanze
Maha in ehanze in ehanze
Raza samoud gad e dry
Zhegden denbi call Tsevegmed
Dui min chiva malui zhom zod zhin
Gon Mad Dunal
Zhurva namzhi zhav
Sanjaa Tsevegmed la chagtsal loo
Um ama rani zewan diei dry
The method is used as a means of combating insomnia, to relieve persistent headaches, in cases of chronic colds - such as SARS, bronchitis, rhinitis, sinusitis, inflammation of the nasal mucosa and ear diseases, polyps and adenoids.
For the procedure, you need a small teapot, like a teapot, 250 ml of lightly salted (one third of a teaspoon of salt) warm (36–37 °) water is poured into it. Instead of salt, you can dissolve baking soda (one-fifth of a teaspoon), as well as a decoction of sage or chamomile. If a person is particularly sensitive to mucosal irritation, it is better to reduce the dose: take a quarter teaspoon of salt or a sixth of a teaspoon of soda.
The position of the patient is half-sitting, that is, the back is straight, the knees are half-bent. First, the head should be tilted to the left, and the kettle of water should be placed on the palm of the right hand. Water from the spout is poured into the right nostril. Water pours out by gravity from the left nostril (you can put a basin on the floor to your left). If the tilt of the head is chosen incorrectly - it is slightly tilted back, water can enter the throat and cause a cough. This is not to be feared - you just need to correct the position of the head.
It is necessary to pass the entire contents of the teapot through the nose. In this case, you will have to breathe through your mouth. Then the procedure is repeated in a mirror image: the head is tilted to the right, the teapot is placed on the palm of the left hand, water flows into the left nostril and flows out of the right.
If the patient has a runny nose, his nose is blocked or so clogged that he cannot breathe, before washing, one of the remedies such as Ximelin, Sinarin or Galazolin should be dripped, and washing should be started 5-10 minutes after instillation of drops.
After washing, they stand up, bending the body at an angle of 90 °, put their hands behind their backs and tilt their heads in all directions so that the remaining water comes out of the nose. Repeated washing is recommended to be done no earlier than the day after tomorrow. And so every other day, from 7 to 10 days. This is 1 course of treatment. The interval between two courses should not be less than a week. After 2-3 washing courses, polyps, if any, decrease or disappear altogether.
There are serious contraindications for nasal lavage. It cannot be performed if there was an injury in the nose, the nasal septum is curved, there are nosebleeds.
Gastric lavage
It is used in cases of food poisoning, digestive problems, gallbladder dyskinesia, chronic cholecystitis, increased acidity of gastric juice, pigmentation on the skin of the face, bad breath, solid fecal waste, insomnia and certain types of allergies.
The posture of the patient during this procedure is the same as when washing the nose - semi-sitting. 1.5–2 liters of warm boiled water are prepared in advance. Water should be swallowed in one big sip and immediately, without stopping, drink all the remaining water. Then you need to straighten up, bringing your legs together, and lean forward at an angle of 90 °, putting your left hand on the stomach area and pressing a little on it, and put the three central fingers of your right hand into the throat, slightly irritating it. A gag reflex will appear, which will provoke the release of water from the stomach, it will be dirty and muddy.
If after vomiting a sour taste remains in the mouth, it is necessary to dissolve 1 teaspoon of soda in 0.5 liters of boiled water and drink it, causing vomiting again.
After gastric lavage, it is not bad to use an antibiotic once - levomycetin is best: 1 tablet 1 time.
Gastric lavage is done no more than twice a month or extraordinary lavage after food poisoning. If pieces of undigested food are noticeable in the vomit, repeat the washing.
It is necessary to ensure that the fingernails are cut short, otherwise, by causing vomiting, you will damage the mucosa of the esophagus.
There are contraindications for this procedure. These are calculous cholecystitis (the presence of stones in the gallbladder), stomach cancer, myocardial infarction, hypertension of the 2nd or 3rd degree, vasoconstriction of the brain, narrowing or swelling of the esophagus, erosive gastritis, stomach ulcer, hiccups.
The human body responds to heavy rains, gusty winds and frosts on the ground with colds and exacerbation of chronic diseases such as rhinitis and sinusitis.
Aside from aspirin and raspberry jam tea, the arsenal of home remedies for late fall seasonal illnesses is surprisingly large and varied.
Speaking about the autumn cold, first of all, you need to urge people not to rush at the first sign of it to antibiotics and other chemical preparations: in this way you will not only lower your immunity, but the effectiveness of the drugs used will constantly decrease.
Meanwhile, Tibetan medicine has accumulated rich experience in dealing with colds with light improvised means without unwanted side effects. Success will be ensured by two important conditions: active actions, without delay, at the first detection of signs of a cold, and perseverance, regularity in the implementation of these actions.
ginger for colds
Ginger is an excellent cold remedy. This root crop, known since ancient times, is so popular in China that it is sold in supermarkets there. (It, as well as ground ginger, can be bought at the store and at the pharmacy.)
One teaspoon of ginger (ground or chopped, if the root is fresh) is brewed with a glass of boiling water, a spoonful of honey and a slice of lemon are added. This mixture has a stronger effect than such a powerful cold weapon as garlic. The idea of using ginger tea in Tibetan medicine is as follows: it is a product of the Yang category, that is, hot, and a cold belongs to the Yin category, cold diseases. The same logic of treatment, when 30–50 g of vodka with red pepper stops a cold, is a powerful attack of Yang products. Immediately after drinking the ginger broth, rub the chest, neck, back of the head, face around the nose, using the Vietnamese "asterisk", vodka or mustard.
The cold Yin climate of Russia strikes the body with a blow to the most vulnerable places - the throat and legs. They need to be warmed up. A scarf and woolen socks should be put on in time and not removed if you feel the first signs of a cold.
Recipe for llama soup for colds
What else needs to be done when a cold, as they say in Buryatia, is “between the steppe and the mountain” (that is, the rise has not yet begun, but is about to begin), is to cook lamsky soup. 2-3 tablespoons of finely chopped lamb (each piece should not exceed a fingernail), are thrown into boiling water, then black peppercorns, onion, garlic, all the greens that are in the house are added, it is desirable that coriander and cardamom are among it. Boil should not be long - only 3-4 minutes. It would be good for a sick person to drink a glass of lama soup in the morning and a glass for dinner. You will see that it is much stronger than chicken broth, which is popular in Russia: immunity increases, the body's preparation for the disease gets lost.
A cold, no matter how trifling it may seem at first, must be dealt with without delay (unfortunately, doctors most often miss this phase). After all, a common cold is fraught with dangerous complications: rheumatism, heart disease, inflammation of the kidneys, polyarthritis, prostatitis, ovarian cysts, viral eye pathology, otitis media; pneumonia on this list seems to be the least trouble ...
You can often see how people come to work with a runny nose, clearly not considering it a serious reason to stay at home and take treatment. This is a very common misconception. A cold is recognized as a disease worthy of respect only when the temperature rises noticeably. And she takes revenge for disrespect, and this revenge can last for many years, if not the rest of her life.
Runny nose? Try to induce a sneeze
A runny nose is already a sign of a cold that is quite sufficient for taking effective measures, located "between the steppe and the mountain." The first thing to do: wrapping the end of the match with cotton wool, tickle in the nose, provoking sneezing. This frees the nose from mucus. Stock up on napkins and tickle your nose tirelessly, achieving a copious waste of mucus.
Nose wings massage
Then do a massage: near the wings of the nose, in the middle of the nasolabial fold, along the nose, under the eyes in the middle of the cheek. Massage will be more effective if you use the Vietnamese "asterisk". Two to three minutes of massage should be repeated as often as possible throughout the day.
Tibetan medicinal collections, similar to snuff, are brought on the thumb to the nose and inhaled vigorously. Instead of Tibetan herbs, you can use garlic: grind it on the traditional place for snuff - the surface of the fist - and inhale.
So, by the way, they treat enlarged adenoids (Tibetan doctors do not recommend removing them), sinusitis and sinusitis.
When treating a cold, Tibetan medicine does not recommend hot foot baths (moisture, even hot, belongs to the category of Yin, and we need Yang!), Therefore, only dry heat. It is better to take a plastic fountain pen and press on the points of the feet with a blunt end, going through the entire area in detail. Massage your palms in the same way. And then carefully rub your ears with your hands. Each limb and each auricle requires 3-5 minutes of diligence during the massage - only in this case you can be sure that all organs have received sufficient energy supply through their representative points on the limbs.
If, nevertheless, the moment is missed and the disease has come into its own: the temperature has risen to 39-40 °, you should use products of the Yin category - lingonberry or cranberry juice to lower the heat. Please note that at the beginning of the illness, in the Yin phase, such fruit drinks are not drunk. Morse goes well with lemon.
When the disease has broken out and it is already on its way to the peak of the mountain, acidic foods are required, then it's time to remember raspberries, sea buckthorn. At this time, Yin procedures are timely, such as wiping the body with vodka or vinegar. Moreover, after rubbing, the patient should be left completely naked for 1–2 minutes: heat exchange between the body and the environment will immediately bring down the high temperature by 1.5–2 °. Rubbing, if the temperature is still high, can be repeated 1-2 times a day.
© S.E. Kashnitsky
© AST Publishing House LLC
Review
Traditional medicine is a vast and multifaceted phenomenon. In the new book by S.E. Kashnitsky "Pearls of Oriental Medicine" an attempt was made to give the widest possible overview of the various methods of traditional medicine - as a rule, tested and proven in practice. The authors of these methods are doctors, often famous and titled, but also healers who pass on valuable folk experience. A special place is given in the book to the methods of Oriental medicine - an ancient science, rediscovered by Europeans in the last century. All this variety of approaches to treatment in the book is systematized, which allows you to quickly find the required method of assistance for various diseases.
However, in the practical use of the recipes given in the book, reasonable prudence is necessary: each organism is individual; what is good for one is not always acceptable for another. Therefore, anyone who dares to use prescriptions as recommendations must certainly coordinate them with the attending physician. Only in this case the risk of thoughtless self-treatment will be minimized.
Professor, Doctor of Biological Sciences A.P. Dubrov
Part 1. At the origins of wisdom
Chapter 1. Facing the East: Encyclopedia of Oriental Medicine
The interest of Europeans in the East is probably as eternal as this conditional division into West and East itself, which has little to do with geography. Starting, probably, with the Greco-Persian wars, our ancient countrymen understood: there, in the East, there is some other civilization. It cannot be said that it is more or less developed. She is different, and this already explains the inexhaustible interest in her. Neither the Indian campaign of Alexander the Great, nor the caravan trade with the Caliphate, nor the adventures of the Crusaders, nor the colonial conquests of European maritime powers, ever satisfied this burning interest, this eternal mystery of the East.
Kipling's phrase: "The West is the West, the East is the East, and together they cannot come together" with formulaic brevity establishes the relationship of two cultures with their dialectical balance of attraction and repulsion.
In addition to gunpowder, paper, silk and spices, Europeans brought from the East an unusual system of ideas about a person and his health. There was a concept of "Oriental medicine", which does not have a clear semantic outline, about which only one thing can be most accurately said: a different medicine.
It was created and developed over the centuries in Persia and Arabia, Tibet and Central Asia, India and China... And in even greater, almost invisible antiquity, probably in Egypt and Sumer, Assyria and Babylon, Phenicia and the Hittite state...
The East is so vast and irreducible to one thing that it is not possible not only to give it and, accordingly, Eastern medicine, a clear definition, but even to confidently identify the principles that distinguish it from the European medicine we are used to. The Korean would answer this question with something different, and the Filipino would have something completely different.
Nevertheless, let us try, at least in the most general terms, to outline the features of that incomprehensible concept, which can be called oriental medicine very conditionally.
The ancient philosophers, observing how everything is interconnected in nature, considered the Creator's separation of light from darkness and the earth's firmament from water as a decisive event. Two pairs of opposites set four categories, or "elements" that underlie the universe.
The life-giving energy is called chi (or qi) in Chinese philosophy, prana in Indian philosophy, and pneuma in Persian. All these words are synonymous with the word “air” that is familiar to us, inhaling which a person receives energy for life. Qigong therapy, prana-yama are systems of respiratory gymnastics that allow you to harmonize the body only due to the correct distribution of energy through it. Biologically active points, united in meridians, are the channels through which the energy of the surrounding world enters the body. This is already an approach radically different from that adopted in the West.
The macrocosm (stars and planets) is similar to the microcosm (nuclei of atoms and elementary particles), just as a person is similar to the Creator-Creator, but consists of dust, that is, chemical elements. The changing macrocosm will certainly change the microcosm - these relationships are studied by astrology. But vice versa: changes in the microcosm entail changes in the macrocosm - this is studied by magic. In the same way, a changing world changes a person - these relationships are monitored by medicine (of course, Eastern).
Everything, including the human body, consists of four primary elements - fire (hot), water (cold), earth (dry) and air (wet). Divided according to tastes: fire is bitter, pungent and salty, water is sour or tasteless, earth is astringent, air is slimy. The basis of the color spectrum: fire - red, water - white, earth - brown, air - blue.
Human life is also divided into phases corresponding to the four primary elements: a newborn comes out of the water, a child swims in the air, a fire burns in a young man, an old man shrinks like earth.
The same four elements determine the temperaments, the doctrine of which the Greek Hippocrates and the Roman Galen borrowed from the East. There are four fluids in a person: bile (or cholius) - fire, lymph (or phlegm) - water, black bile (or melancholius) - earth, blood (or sangvus) - air.
Accordingly, spicy, bitter and salty foods are more suitable for explosive choleric people; lethargic phlegmatic people prefer cold, wet, sour food; restrained melancholics, old people from their youth, will choose dry and sweet foods, such as dried fruits; cheerful, "childish" sanguine people - fatty, oily food.
This is how the layout of the primary elements, in itself, indicates to us the patterns of healthy eating that underlie oriental medicine (which will be discussed in more detail below).
Exactly in accordance with the same logic, it is better for the choleric to live in the south, the phlegmatic - in the north, the melancholic - in the east and the sanguine - in the west. And it is better for everyone to eat what grows in a suitable area for him - this is how the body adapts, using the leading primary element embedded in it. Violation of this principle leads to diseases and, above all, to allergies, which is a kind of payment for adapting to a foreign element.
Tibetan medicine - the most integral part of Oriental medicine that has been preserved for several millennia - does not recognize surgical intervention in the human body. Only one correct selection of food, minerals, herbs, aromatic substances, Tibetan doctors undertake to solve all the problems of a malfunctioning organism.
Until recently, Tibet was a closed country and there was no access for foreigners. In our country, the existence of Tibetan medicine was known from Buryatia, where it penetrated along with Buddhism in the 17th century. Buryat lamas themselves wrote medical essays on theoretical issues, and also compiled prescription guides, which are practical guidelines for treatment. Today, Tibetan healers move freely around the world and pass on to their students knowledge that was previously considered secret and inaccessible even in Tibet itself.
In our time, Western civilization is experiencing an ecological crisis - a crisis of disturbed relationships between man and nature, when, due to imbalances in the harmonious ratio of primary elements, people in their mass became chronically ill. Under such conditions, a return to the original concepts, attempts to achieve a disturbed balance are quite natural. That is why the whole world today has turned its eyes to the achievements of oriental medicine.
More and more patients come to medical centers where the principles of oriental medicine are applied. More and more pilgrims flock to Asia, to the autochthonous bearers of ancient knowledge. The shelves of bookstores are filled with literature revealing the secrets of oriental medicine.
The information collected in the book is fragmentary: in some regions of the East (Mongolia, Buryatia, Uzbekistan, Tatarstan, Bulgaria, which I also conditionally attribute to the East, since the information received there comes from Turkey, Greece, Byzantium) I happened to visit personally and communicate with figures of ancient medical culture, I met with some interlocutors from China, Taiwan, Korea in other territories. You should also not look for completeness in recipes that help cure ailments. Only those of them are given that were passed on to me by the carriers of this knowledge.
The information contained in my notes is purely practical. I am not trying, like other scientific authors, to explain, for example, the basics of reflexology. But I give the simplest recommendations: massaging which points in which cases will help get rid of the most common ailments.
The recipes of Eastern doctors, as a rule, were taken by me on faith: there was simply no physical opportunity to check everything on myself and loved ones. In those cases where such checks were carried out, I specifically stipulate this. But, I believe, you can trust the information I give in the book: all my interlocutors are people with solid experience in practical work in medicine or healing. In addition, most of the notes were published in the periodical press and had a lot of feedback from readers who were able to use the recipes I cited.
In addition to information from oriental medicine, a lot of information has accumulated about alternative methods of healing and treatment that have practical value. I have separated it into a separate part of the book. The book also contains specific recipes for the treatment of diseases by folk methods for the convenience of readers, arranged in alphabetical order.
In conclusion, I would like to thank all my interlocutors who disinterestedly shared their knowledge with me and readers. Special thanks to Professor Ivan Pavlovich Neumyvakin, chief physician of the Tibetan clinic "Naran" in Moscow, Svetlana Galsanovna Choyzhinimaeva and an employee of the Bukhara Medical Institute Inom Dzhuraevich Karomatov, who devoted long hours to useful and interesting conversations with me about oriental medicine.
Middle East and Central Asia
Ancient recipe of Avicenna
Everyone must have heard this name. But few people know anything specific about this person. Medieval Arab thinker. Philosopher, physician, musician. So after all then all outstanding people were encyclopedists.
Abu Ali ibn Sina (in Latin pronunciation - Avicenna) during the period of the Arabic Renaissance continued the traditions of Aristotle and the Neoplatonists, left to descendants about 50 works on medicine, 30 of which have survived to this day. Among them is the Canon of Medical Science, which until the 17th century was the main medical aid for European doctors. And then Avicenna was forgotten for many centuries. Rather, the name remained, but Avicenna's prescriptions disappeared from the medical arsenal.
Meanwhile, it is still modern today. And we - instead of grabbing a pill for any reason - can use the wisdom of the Arab genius. You just need to learn to understand it.
A thousand years ago, when Avicenna lived and worked, dead matter in the form of chemical additives was not included in the composition of medicines. Those thousands of recipes that the Arab doctor left us contain only natural ingredients of plant, animal and mineral origin. These recipes are by no means abstract mental constructions, they were personally tested by Avicenna and other famous doctors. And since much of the knowledge of that era has been lost, the verification and search for correspondence between the former names of the components and the current ones continues today.
Then they set about solving the problems of "translating" his recipes into the language of modern herbal medicine. This is not always easy: sometimes the meaning of some names is lost. They have to be restored using context or a general understanding of the qualities that are required to achieve the desired effect.
For example, many of Avicenna's recipes use the term pulegium mint. What it is? Let us turn to the first book of the Canon, where all varieties of mint are given. In particular, in the section "Fudanaj" it is indicated that pulegic mint consists of a rarefied substance, drives sweat, dries and warms a lot. It is already clear that we are talking about the expansion of blood vessels. The sum of all the properties mentioned can be found among known identical plants. Specifically, we need mint with a high menthol content. Or catnip, together with lemon balm (lemon mint), obviously overlapping the properties that mint, including pulegium, can differ in.
Having found such a replacement, you can “modernize”, for example, Avicenna’s most important recipe for removing kidney stones, which has one hundred percent efficiency.
How to get kidney stones out. Avicenna recipe
They take one part of lavender flowers, two parts of mountain thyme (Avicenna has thyme), two parts of strawberry leaves and berries, one part of lemon balm, two parts of catnip and two parts of mint (all these plants, as a rule, are available in the summer cottage, the missing ones can be find in a pharmacy or store). All this is mixed, a teaspoon of the plant mixture is poured with a glass of boiling water and infused for 10-15 minutes. The infusion is drunk like tea. Thyme and strawberry crush stones, turning them into sand, but do not drive them along the excretory paths, lavender relieves inflammation, and mint, lemon balm and catnip drive the resulting mucus down. They drink the infusion, all the time looking through the morning urine: already a week after the start of the reception, it becomes cloudy (mucus goes), then grains of sand appear. Continue treatment from two months to a year until the urine becomes clear. The great advantage of this method is that the stone will not go through the ducts, causing excruciating pain.
Studying Avicenna's recipes in practice, the researchers were convinced that they are very strong, designed for patients with a greater margin of health than current people. Apparently, a thousand years ago, the immune system was stronger, and a person reacted perfectly to the active effects of drugs. We must make allowances for the changed ecological situation and the greater vulnerability of our body.
So, for example, one should be wary of the recommendation of treating men with St. John's wort. This very popular herb is purely female, men should not use it for longer than two weeks: impotence may occur. And we are used to thinking that all herbs have only a weak, barely noticeable effect on the body.
A very common disease is otitis media (inflammation of the middle ear). It causes a lot of trouble with acute pain, possible complications. Doctors often prescribe antibiotics for otitis media. Meanwhile, Avicenna teaches how to easily and harmlessly deal with this disease.
How to get rid of otitis. Avicenna recipe
Take almonds. If bitter, wild, two cores are enough, if sweet, four cores. They are crushed in a mortar. Add a pinch of Ceylon or Chinese cinnamon, a pinch of soda and 1 drop of essential rose oil. All this is connected with half a teaspoon of thick honey - a paste is obtained, which should be stored in the cold. A drop of vinegar is dropped onto a piece of paste the size of a pea - in the presence of soda, a hiss occurs. The reaction of soda with vinegar allows almonds to release phytoncides, due to which it is in the most active phase. In this state, you can’t store the drug for the future: the reaction has to be repeated before each new use. A hissing "pea" is placed in a sore ear, plugged with cotton wool and kept for an hour. 3-4 such procedures a day for several days will lead to a complete recovery. Moreover, the pain in the ear is removed from the second time.
In the "Canon" there are three recipes for the treatment of inflammation of the ear. Those elements that are repeated in all three are selected: almonds, soda, honey. And the main principle: soda and vinegar balance each other. Rose oil is taken from the first recipe, Chinese cinnamon is taken from the third. Thanks to this, it was possible to bypass galban, which grows only in Africa (experimentally convinced that the drug is quite effective even without galban). Saffron, mentioned by Avicenna, is replaced by cinnamon. There is nowhere to get myrrh now, poppy, which is a drug, is unacceptable as a sleeping pill.
Infusion on pomegranate peels for stomach ulcers
A medieval physician gave us a recipe for getting rid of stomach and duodenal ulcers. Take sweet pomegranate peels (sweet pomegranate seeds are maroon in color) and sour pomegranate peels (light pink grains). Pomegranate peels can be replaced with cypress cones. It is convenient to grind any of the selected substances in a coffee grinder or with a meat grinder. Pour it with red wine, heated to 50-60 °, in a ratio of 1:10 and insist for 2 weeks in a tightly closed vessel in a warm place without access to light. Then the pulp is separated, the wine is filtered and drunk 30 g on an empty stomach and twice a day before meals. The duration of treatment depends on the size of the ulcer (an ulcer with a diameter of a penny coin is delayed for a month). With increased acidity, the wine should be dessert, with low acidity, it should be dry. Healing will be faster if the wine does not contain a preservative added to better preserve the drink (such wine can be purchased in high season in wine-growing areas or use home-made wine).
A replacement for this recipe: long, chewing on a cypress cone, until the ulcer heals.
Avicenna's recipe for longevity
Avicenna's recipes do not lose their relevance today. It remains only to regret that the rejection of the teachings of the brilliant physician by the Catholic Inquisition led in the middle of the 17th century to the complete rejection of Avicenna's heritage by European medicine and the oblivion of many of his works.
The restoration of this heritage is a long, painstaking work, but quite real. It is only important not to drown in theorizing and check each recipe in practice.
Avicenna considered the art of maintaining health to be the main business of his life. Moreover, it is not an art that prevents death, saves the body from external disasters, or guarantees the body a very long life. The task of this art is much more modest, but at the same time extremely important: to provide protection from damage to the moisture contained within the body.
Before the onset of natural death, according to Avicenna, this is a means of preserving the human body. It is entrusted to two forces: the natural, nourishing and providing a substitute for what disappears from the body, and the force that makes the pulse beat.
This task is achieved by observing three modes:
Replacement of moisture disappearing from the body;
Prevention of the causes that cause and accelerate the drying of the body;
Protection of the moisture present in the body from decay.
The main thing in the art of maintaining health is to balance seven factors: nature, physical and mental movement (that is, sleep and wakefulness), choice of drink and food, cleansing the body of excess, maintaining a correct physique, improving the air exhaled through the nose, adapting clothing to the needs of the body.
Newborn Health Bookmark Recipe
After the baby is born, the umbilical cord is cut and tied with clean wool. To strengthen the skin, the child's body is doused with lightly salted water. Before swaddling him, you should lightly touch the baby's body with your fingertips and wrinkle him slightly. Put the baby to sleep in a room with moderate air temperature. In summer, the baby is bathed with moderately warm water, in winter - moderately hot. It is best to start bathing after a long sleep.
Let first, for a week or two, the child is breastfed not by the mother, but by the nurse, until the mother's nature is balanced after childbirth. A nursing mother or another woman should not, according to Avicenna, succumb to such emotional reactions as anger, sadness, fear, so that the baby does not absorb information that spoils nature with milk. To strengthen the child's nature, light swaying, music, and singing are very good. It is desirable that the mother sing more often (regardless of her skill and assessment of the quality of this singing by herself and those around her): maternal singing is in any case healing for the nature of the child.
The baby should be breastfed for two years.
The little man should be protected by all possible means from intense anger, fright, sadness and insomnia. It is necessary to give him what he wants, and to remove from him what he does not like.
