Time to sensitize medical graduates to the Indian systems of medicine and homeopathy.

Sir,

Apropos your recent editorial “Time to sensitize medical graduates to the Indian Systems of Medicine and Homeopathy” published in IJP, January, 2015.[1] I must compliment your timely and well-deserved proposition mandating in depth deliberation at all levels including Ministry of Health and Family Welfare which controls both modern system of medicine as well as Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy, Medical Council of India, University Grants Commission and Health Academia. Besides the six compelling reasons which have been cited in the editorial there are two more important issues which call for incorporating basic tenets of Indian System of Medicine in modern medical system. These are:

Ayurveda being a goldmine of herbal medicine provides clue to reverse pharmacology, the present day need for bed to bench research. Three such classical example are - Terminalia arjuna which has shown to be an effective therapy for stable angina and coronary artery disease,[23] Combination of Withania somnifera and siddh Makardhwaj in rheumatoid arthritis[4] and use of Curcuma domestica (turmeric) as an anti-inflammatory agent.[5] Needless to mention that having dried up other sources of discovering new molecules it is high time that we focus our attention towards our own plant based drugs. Council of Scientific and Industrial Research had done commendable job in preparing a digital library of such herbs.[6] How can we achieve this objective without sensitizing our students towards basic pharmacognostical and pharmacological properties of few important plants

The worsening health scenario due to surging epidemic of noncommunicable diseases which cannot be managed alone by allopathic system of medicine. Leave alone curing the acute episodes of most of these totally preventable diseases; lot is desired to emphasize about the need for the holistic approach for their prevention. Looking at the root cause of these maladies one can easily make out that there is lot of synergy between the healthy life style as advocated by Indian System of Medicine and current day recommendations of many professional bodies both national as well as international[3]

Further, it is high time that we include yoga in MBBS course. Association of Physicians of India has already taken a humble step in this direction by incorporating this in its text book of Medicine.[7] Similarly cardiological society of India has come out with a “consensus document” recommending yoga for managememt of hypertension and other cardiovascular diseases.[3]

Conceptually Ayurveda and Unani both take holistic view of most of the current health problems. However, the fact that these streams of medicine were conceived many centuries ago and have not been subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny; they do need ratification by evidence based research using modern tools of investigations. It needs no over emphasis that our Asian neighbors like China, Vietnam and Sri Lanka have already gone ahead with integration of their traditional medicine with modern allopathic system. Why can’t we move in this direction.

Fortunately we now have three premier institutions, one at Banaras (Banaras Hindu University), another at Aligarh (Aligarh Muslim University) and third at Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi which have modern medical colleges as well as Ayurvedic/Unani undergraduate courses running under the same roof. These three premier Institutes can be asked to develop a model of conducting integrated courses which can be later on applied all over India in phased manner. This suggestion needs due consideration.