Chapter 12 Humoralism in Āyurvedic Medicine
In: Holism in Ancient Medicine and Its ReceptionSearch for other papers by Francis Zimmermann in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Purchase instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Abstract
Sanskrit medical collections offer two alternative approaches to health and disease, which represent two different versions of humoralism in Āyurvedic medicine. A few dissident scholars, who are comparable to the ones denounced by Hippocrates in On Ancient Medicine, followed a top-down approach to the patient’s body described as an undifferentiated aggregate whose health could only be controlled by acting on its humoral condition. This holistic postulate was best suited for prescribing rejuvenative medications comprised of nourishing and well-balanced foods and drugs to upgrade mental abilities, to sharpen the sensory faculties, to enhance sexual potency, and to maximise life chances. On the other hand, the more authoritative scholars, advocating a bottom-up approach to disease in which clinical investigations came to enhance the holistic concept of disease, started from the observed dispositions of the patient’s body to track the distribution of different organic fluids to specific channels, to assess the humoral condition in the different affected parts, and to devise suitable countermeasures. This second version of humoralism, represented by the differentiated integration of channels in the affected parts, was best suited for prescriptions following the principle of opposite treatment. These two modalities of humoralism have been equally constitutive of the Āyurvedic method of treatment.