Traditional medicine practice approaches: past history, Today's challenge
Tārīkh-i pizishkī i.e., Medical History,
Vol. 6 No. 20 (1393),
26 Dey 2015
,
Page 143-160
https://doi.org/10.22037/mhj.v6i20.10913
Abstract
Background: All Iranian traditional medical scholars from past to today have agreed that the purpose of medicine is to keep the healthiness and to bring it back when it has gone. But they were disagreed in method of gaining and training needed knowledge that it remains today. Observing those historical differences would provide lessons for the best use of traditional medicine today.
Method: the current study is a survey that evaluates Iranian traditional medicine practice methods which have been discussed in Iranian traditional medicine books such as "Hidayat-al-Mota'allimin fi l-ttib" of AbuBakr Rabi ibn Ahmad Ahkhawayini Bukhari, "Miftah al-Tibb va Minhajal-Tullab" of Ibn-i Hindu, "Zakhireh Kharazmshahi" of seyed Ismail Jorjani, "Fi Feragh al-tibb lel-moteallemin" of Galen, "Uyun al-Anba fi Ṭabaqhat al-Aṭibba" of Ibn abi usaybia and some other manuscripts.
Results: Former traditional physicians used either logical or experimental methods to reach medical knowledge and to practice it. Their different methods of diagnosis, knowledge acquisition and treatment was based on their diverse beliefs about the importance of a precise method which by, they were categorized into 3groups: the Empiricists, the Rationalists and the Methodists. A pure Empiricist only stresses on the use of past experience which narrows the rout towards innovation and deduction, therefore weakens understanding and performing in new diseases or clinical conditions. On the other hand, induction without the use of previous experience also makes diagnosis and treatment difficult. Finally approaching the disease and not the patient as the pure Methodists do, opens the way towards many mistakes specially towards overuse of interventions and potent medication
Discussion & Conclusion: It seems that achieving to acute facts in medicine needs a combination of experience, experimentation, deduction and reasoning in causes of diseases and conditions of the patients. Since medicine has been historically developed by experience and deduction, nowadays those healers who apply these methods efficiently in each patient or new disease are able to diagnose and treat more effectively.
- Experience, Deduction, Hill, Iranian Traditional Medicine
How to Cite
References
Abu Bakr Rabi ibn Ahmad Ahkhawayini Bukhari. (1992). Hidayat-al-Mota'allimin fi l-ttib. Matini J, editor. Mshhad: Ferdoosi university of Mashhad, 16.
Galenus, C. (1977). Fi Feragh al-tibb lel-moteallemin. Translated by Hunayn ibn Ishaq. Cairo: dar al-kotob press, 40-53.
Hjørland, B. (2005). Empiricism, rationalism and positivism in library and information science. Journal of Documentation. 61(1): 130-55.
Ibn abi usaybia, A. (2007). Uyun al-Anba fi Ṭabaqhat al-Aṭibba. Translated by Ghazban Sayed Jafar, NajmabadiMahmoud. Tehran: Institute for Studies in thehistory of medicine, Islamic and complementary medicine. Iran University of Medical Sciences, 75-6.
Ibn-i Hindu, A. (1989). Miftah al-Tibb va Minhajal-Tullab. Mohaghegh M, Danshpazhooh M, editor. Tehran University Press, McGill University, 231-7.
Jorjani, I. (2012). Zakhireh Kharazmshahi. Qom: Institute of Natural Medicine Revival, 3: 406-407.
Lloyd, GER. (1987). The Revolutions of Wisdom: Studies in the Claims and Practice of Ancient Greek Science. Berkeley: University of California Press, 201-2
Miller, FP. Vandome, AF. McBrewster, J. (2011). Methodic School. VDM Publishing, 34.
Nazem, I. Baghbani, M. (1391). Tabiat In Iranian medicine. Tehran: Almaee publication, 125.
Omid, M. Noori, M. (2013). The concept of causation in the paradigms of medicine. Iranian Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine. 6 (3): 42-53.
Waldow, A. (2010). Empiricism and Its Roots in the Ancient Medical Tradition, in The Body as Object and Instrument of Knowledge. 287-308.
- Abstract Viewed: 1043 times
- PDF (فارسی) Downloaded: 507 times