Chapter 1. Facing the East: Encyclopedia of Oriental Medicine
The interest of Europeans in the East is probably as eternal as this conventional division into West and East itself, which has little to do with geography. Starting, probably, with the Greco-Persian wars, our ancient fellow countrymen understood: there, in the East, there was 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 sea powers ever satisfied this burning interest, this eternal mystery of the East.
Kipling's phrase: “West is West, East is East, and they cannot come together” with formulaic laconicism establishes the relationship of the 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 man and his health. The concept of “Oriental medicine” has emerged, which does not have clear semantic outlines, about which only one thing can be said more accurately: a different medicine.
It was created and developed over centuries in Persia and Arabia, in Tibet and Central Asia, in 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 cannot be reduced to one thing that it is not possible not only to give it and, accordingly, Eastern medicine, a clear definition, but even to confidently highlight the principles that distinguish it from the European medicine we are accustomed to. A Korean would answer this question with something different, but a Filipino would answer something completely different.
Nevertheless, we will try to outline, at least in the most general terms, the features of that vast concept that can very loosely be called Eastern medicine.
Ancient philosophers, observing how everything in nature is interconnected, considered the decisive event to be the separation by the Creator of light from darkness and the earth's firmament from water. Two pairs of opposites defined four categories, or “elements,” that underlie the universe.
The energy that gives life is called chi (or qi) in Chinese philosophy, prana in Indian philosophy, and pneuma in Persian philosophy. All these words are synonyms of the familiar word “air”, by inhaling which a person receives energy for life. Qigong therapy, prana yama are systems of breathing exercises that allow you to harmonize the body only through the correct distribution of energy throughout it. Biologically active points, united in meridians, are the channels through which the energy of the surrounding world enters the body. This is an approach radically different from that accepted in the West.
The macrocosm (stars and planets) is similar to the microcosm (atomic nuclei and elementary particles), just as man is similar to the Creator, but consists of dust, that is, chemical elements. A changing macrocosm certainly changes the microcosm - astrology studies these relationships. 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 (oriental, of course).
Everything, including the human body, consists of four primary elements - fire (hot), water (cold), earth (dry) and air (wet). Separation 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 is red, water is white, earth is brown, air is blue.
Human life is also divided into phases corresponding to the four primary elements: a newborn emerges from the water, a child floats in the air, a fire burns in a young man, an old man shrivels like earth.
The same four elements determine 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; sluggish phlegmatic people prefer cold, damp, sour food; restrained melancholic people, old people from youth, will choose dry and sweet foods, such as dried fruits; cheerful, “childish” sanguine people – fatty, oily foods
This is how the breakdown of the primary elements, in itself, points us to the patterns of healthy eating that underlie Eastern medicine (which will be discussed in more detail below).
Exactly in accordance with the same logic, it is better for a choleric person to live in the south, a phlegmatic person in the north, a melancholic person in the east, and a sanguine person in the west. And it is better for everyone to eat what grows in the area suitable for him - this is how the body adapts, using the leading primary element embedded in it. Violation of this principle leads to illness and, above all, to allergies, which is a kind of payment for adapting to someone else's elements.
Tibetan medicine - the most integral part of oriental medicine that has survived for several millennia - does not recognize operative, surgical intervention in the human body. With just the right selection of food, minerals, herbs, and aromatic substances, Tibetan doctors undertake to solve all the problems of a malfunctioning body.
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 concerning theoretical issues, and also compiled prescription reference books, which were 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.
Nowadays, Western civilization is experiencing an ecological crisis - a crisis of broken relationships between man and nature, when, due to imbalances introduced into the harmonious relationships of primary elements, people for the most part have become chronically ill. In such conditions, a return to initial concepts and attempts to achieve a disturbed balance are quite natural. That is why the whole world today has turned its attention to the achievements of Eastern medicine.
More and more patients are coming to medical centers where the principles of oriental medicine are applied. More and more pilgrims are flocking to Asia, to the autochthonous bearers of ancient knowledge. Bookstore shelves are filled with literature revealing the secrets of Eastern medicine.
The information collected in the book is fragmentary: in some regions of the East (Mongolia, Buryatia, Uzbekistan, Tatarstan, Bulgaria, which I also conditionally classify as the East, since the information received there comes from Turkey, Greece, Byzantium) I had a chance to visit personally and communicate with figures of ancient medical culture, I met with some interlocutors from China, Taiwan, and Korea in other territories. You should also not look for completeness in recipes that help cure ailments. Only those that were conveyed to me by the bearers of this knowledge are given.
The information contained in my notes is purely practical. I am not trying, like other learned authors, to explain, for example, the basics of reflexology. But here are the simplest recommendations: massaging which points in which cases will help get rid of the most common ailments.
As a rule, I took the recipes of oriental doctors on faith: I simply did not have the physical opportunity to test everything on myself and my loved ones. In cases where such checks were carried out, I specifically stipulate this. But, I believe, you can trust the information I provide 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 periodicals and had many responses from readers who were able to use the recipes I gave.
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 treating diseases using traditional methods for the convenience of readers, arranged in alphabetical order.
In conclusion, I would like to thank all my interlocutors who selflessly shared their knowledge with me and the readers. Special thanks to Professor Ivan Pavlovich Neumyvakin, chief physician of the Naran Tibetan clinic in Moscow, Svetlana Galsanovna Choyzhinimaeva and 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
Avicenna's ancient recipe
Everyone has probably heard this name. But few people know anything specific about this man. Medieval Arab thinker. Philosopher, doctor, musician. Well, back then all the outstanding people were encyclopedists.
Abu Ali ibn Sina (in Latin pronunciation - Avicenna) during the Arab Renaissance continued the traditions of Aristotle and Neoplatonists, leaving to his 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 manual for European doctors. And then Avicenna was forgotten for many centuries. Or rather, the name remained, but Avicenna’s recipes 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, the composition of medicines did not include dead matter in the form of chemical additives. 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 constructs; 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 the correspondence of the previous names of components to the current ones continues today.
Then we set about solving the problem 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 reconstructed using context or a general understanding of the qualities required to achieve the desired effect.
For example, many of Avicenna’s recipes use the concept of pulegic mint. What it is? Let us turn to the first book of the “Canon”, where all the varieties of mint are given. In particular, in the “Fudanage” section it is indicated that mint pulegium consists of a rarefied substance, drives away sweat, dries and strongly warms. It is already clear that we are talking about vasodilation. 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 balm), which obviously overlaps the properties that mint, including pulegium mint, can have.
By finding such a replacement, you can “modernize,” for example, Avicenna’s most important recipe for removing kidney stones, which is 100% effective.
How to remove kidney stones. Avicenna's recipe
Take one part of lavender flowers, two parts of mountain thyme (in Avicenna - 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 at the dacha, 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 strawberries 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 taking it, it becomes cloudy (mucus comes out), then grains of sand appear. Continue treatment for two months to a year until the urine becomes clear. The huge advantage of this method is that the stone will not pass through the ducts, causing excruciating pain.
Studying Avicenna's recipes in practice, researchers became convinced that they were very strong, designed for patients with a greater health reserve than today's people. Apparently, a thousand years ago the immune system was stronger, and people responded well to the active effects of drugs. We must make allowances for the changed environmental situation and the greater vulnerability of our body.
So, for example, one should be wary of the recommendation to treat men with St. John's wort. This very popular herb is purely feminine; men should not use it for longer than two weeks: impotence may occur. And we are accustomed 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 and 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's recipe
Take almonds. If it is bitter, wild, two kernels are enough; if it is sweet, four kernels are enough. 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 combined with half a teaspoon of thick honey - a paste is obtained, which should be kept in the cold. A drop of vinegar is dropped onto a pea-sized piece of pasta - a hissing sensation occurs in the presence of soda. 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 cannot store the drug for future use: the reaction must be repeated before each new use. A hissing “pea” is placed in the sore ear, plugged with cotton wool and held for an hour. 3-4 such procedures per day for several days will lead to complete recovery. Moreover, the pain in the ear is relieved the second time.
The Canon contains three recipes for treating ear inflammation. Those elements were selected that are repeated in all three: 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 (we were experimentally convinced that the drug is quite effective even without galban). The saffron mentioned by Avicenna is replaced by cinnamon. There is nowhere to get myrrh now; poppy, which is a narcotic, is unacceptable as a sleeping pill.
Infusion of 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 grains are dark burgundy 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 using a meat grinder. Pour this with red wine, heated to 50–60°, in a ratio of 1:10 and leave 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 30 g is drunk 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 will heal within a month). With high acidity, the wine should be dessert, with low acidity it should be dry. Healing will take place faster if the wine does not contain a preservative added to better preserve the drink (such wine can be purchased at the height of the season in wine-growing areas or use home-made wine).
Replacement of this recipe: chewing a cypress cone for a long time, until the ulcer heals.
Avicenna's recipe for longevity
Avicenna’s recipes do not lose their relevance today. One can only 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 legacy by European medicine and the oblivion of many of his works.
Restoring this heritage is a long, painstaking work, but quite realistic. It is only important not to drown in theorizing and test each recipe in practice.
Avicenna considered the art of maintaining health to be the main task of his life. Moreover, it is not an art that prevents death, rids the body of 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 inside the body.
Until natural death occurs, according to Avicenna, this is a means of preserving the human body. It is entrusted to two forces: natural, nourishing and providing replacement for what disappears from the body, and the force that makes the pulse beat.
This task is achieved by observing three modes:
Replacing moisture disappearing from the body;
Preventing the causes that cause and accelerate drying of the body;
Protecting the moisture 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 knead him slightly. Put the baby to sleep in a room where the air temperature is moderate. As a child, the baby is bathed with moderately warm water, in winter - moderately hot. It is best to start swimming after a long sleep.
Let the child be breastfed not by the mother, but by the nurse, for a week or two at first, until the mother’s nature balances out after childbirth. A nursing mother or other woman should not, according to Avicenna, succumb to such mental reactions as anger, sadness, fear, so that the baby does not absorb information that spoils nature with milk. To strengthen a child's nature, gentle rocking, music, and singing are very good. It is desirable that the mother sing more often (regardless of her skill and the assessment of the quality of this singing by herself and those around her): mother’s singing is in any case healing for the child’s nature.
A child should be breastfed for two years.
The little man should be protected in every possible way from severe anger, fear, sadness and insomnia. It is necessary to give him what he wants and remove from him what he does not like.
From the book Secrets of Longevity by Ma FolinChapter 2 What are the advantages of oriental cuisine If you carefully read the first chapter, then you may already understand the benefits and health benefits of vegetarianism and eating seafood. The advantage of the Asian diet is that it has very limited consumption.
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From the book Secrets of Oriental Medicine by K. SelchenokChapter 1. Symbols of Western and Eastern medicine
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From the book The Healing Power of the Russian Bath. Traditional recipes for health and longevity author Vadim Nikolaevich PustovoitovKonstantin Selchenok Secrets of Oriental Medicine To Vladislav Zenonovich Soloukhin - a wonderful writer and wise healer - with deep respect and heartfelt gratitude
From the book Facial Care. Concise Encyclopedia author Elena Yurievna KhramovaCHAPTER 2 THE MAGIC OF EASTERN LOVE Unties the belt Removes the long cord that still retains a subtle aroma. Here is a shaky bridge between two worlds. Erotic Tanka There is probably no people in the world for whom love and erotic games are not an important component of the life of society.
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From the author's bookHealth and illness from the point of view of oriental medicine The condition of the eyes is a reflection of the state of health in general. The human eye hides many secrets inside itself. Herbal healers of the East claim that the eyes are in close functional connection with
© S.E. Kashnitsky
© AST Publishing House LLC
Review
Traditional medicine is an immense and multifaceted phenomenon. In the new book by S.E. Kashnitsky “Pearls of Oriental Medicine” attempts to give the broadest possible overview of 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 is systematized in the book, which allows you to quickly find the required method of help for various diseases.
However, when using the recipes given in the book in practice, reasonable caution is necessary: each organism is individual; what is good for one is not always acceptable for another. Therefore, anyone who dares to use recipes as recommendations must certainly agree on them with their doctor. Only in this case the risk of thoughtless self-medication 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 Eastern Medicine
The interest of Europeans in the East is probably as eternal as this conventional division into West and East itself, which has little to do with geography. Starting, probably, with the Greco-Persian wars, our ancient fellow countrymen understood: there, in the East, there was 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 sea powers ever satisfied this burning interest, this eternal mystery of the East.
Kipling's phrase: “West is West, East is East, and they cannot come together” with formulaic laconicism establishes the relationship of the 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 man and his health. The concept of “Oriental medicine” has emerged, which does not have clear semantic outlines, about which only one thing can be said more accurately: a different medicine.
It was created and developed over centuries in Persia and Arabia, in Tibet and Central Asia, in 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 cannot be reduced to one thing that it is not possible not only to give it and, accordingly, Eastern medicine, a clear definition, but even to confidently highlight the principles that distinguish it from the European medicine we are accustomed to. A Korean would answer this question with something different, but a Filipino would answer something completely different.
Nevertheless, we will try to outline, at least in the most general terms, the features of that vast concept that can very loosely be called Eastern medicine.
Ancient philosophers, observing how everything in nature is interconnected, considered the decisive event to be the separation by the Creator of light from darkness and the earth's firmament from water. Two pairs of opposites defined four categories, or “elements,” that underlie the universe.
The energy that gives life is called chi (or qi) in Chinese philosophy, prana in Indian philosophy, and pneuma in Persian philosophy. All these words are synonyms of the familiar word “air”, by inhaling which a person receives energy for life. Qigong therapy, prana yama are systems of breathing exercises that allow you to harmonize the body only through the correct distribution of energy throughout it. Biologically active points, united in meridians, are the channels through which the energy of the surrounding world enters the body. This is an approach radically different from that accepted in the West.
The macrocosm (stars and planets) is similar to the microcosm (atomic nuclei and elementary particles), just as man is similar to the Creator, but consists of dust, that is, chemical elements. A changing macrocosm certainly changes the microcosm - astrology studies these relationships. 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 (oriental, of course).
Everything, including the human body, consists of four primary elements - fire (hot), water (cold), earth (dry) and air (wet). Separation 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 is red, water is white, earth is brown, air is blue.
Human life is also divided into phases corresponding to the four primary elements: a newborn emerges from the water, a child floats in the air, a fire burns in a young man, an old man shrivels like earth.
The same four elements determine 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; sluggish phlegmatic people prefer cold, damp, sour food; restrained melancholic people, old people from youth, will choose dry and sweet foods, such as dried fruits; cheerful, “childish” sanguine people – fatty, oily foods.
This is how the breakdown of the primary elements, in itself, points us to the patterns of healthy eating that underlie Eastern medicine (which will be discussed in more detail below).
Exactly in accordance with the same logic, it is better for a choleric person to live in the south, a phlegmatic person in the north, a melancholic person in the east, and a sanguine person in the west. And it is better for everyone to eat what grows in the area suitable for him - this is how the body adapts, using the leading primary element embedded in it. Violation of this principle leads to illness and, above all, to allergies, which is a kind of payment for adapting to someone else's elements.
Tibetan medicine - the most integral part of oriental medicine that has survived for several millennia - does not recognize operative, surgical intervention in the human body. With just the right selection of food, minerals, herbs, and aromatic substances, Tibetan doctors undertake to solve all the problems of a malfunctioning body.
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 concerning theoretical issues, and also compiled prescription reference books, which were 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.
Nowadays, Western civilization is experiencing an ecological crisis - a crisis of broken relationships between man and nature, when, due to imbalances introduced into the harmonious relationships of primary elements, people for the most part have become chronically ill. In such conditions, a return to initial concepts and attempts to achieve a disturbed balance are quite natural. That is why the whole world today has turned its attention to the achievements of Eastern medicine.
More and more patients are coming to medical centers where the principles of oriental medicine are applied. More and more pilgrims are flocking to Asia, to the autochthonous bearers of ancient knowledge. Bookstore shelves are filled with literature revealing the secrets of Eastern medicine.
The information collected in the book is fragmentary: in some regions of the East (Mongolia, Buryatia, Uzbekistan, Tatarstan, Bulgaria, which I also conditionally classify as the East, since the information received there comes from Turkey, Greece, Byzantium) I had a chance to visit personally and communicate with figures of ancient medical culture, I met with some interlocutors from China, Taiwan, and Korea in other territories. You should also not look for completeness in recipes that help cure ailments. Only those that were conveyed to me by the bearers of this knowledge are given.
The information contained in my notes is purely practical. I am not trying, like other learned authors, to explain, for example, the basics of reflexology. But here are the simplest recommendations: massaging which points in which cases will help get rid of the most common ailments.
As a rule, I took the recipes of oriental doctors on faith: I simply did not have the physical opportunity to test everything on myself and my loved ones. In cases where such checks were carried out, I specifically stipulate this. But, I believe, you can trust the information I provide 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 periodicals and had many responses from readers who were able to use the recipes I gave.
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 treating diseases using traditional methods for the convenience of readers, arranged in alphabetical order.
In conclusion, I would like to thank all my interlocutors who selflessly shared their knowledge with me and the readers. Special thanks to Professor Ivan Pavlovich Neumyvakin, chief physician of the Naran Tibetan clinic in Moscow, Svetlana Galsanovna Choyzhinimaeva and 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
Avicenna's ancient recipe
Everyone has probably heard this name. But few people know anything specific about this man. Medieval Arab thinker. Philosopher, doctor, musician. Well, back then all the outstanding people were encyclopedists.
Abu Ali ibn Sina (in Latin pronunciation - Avicenna) during the Arab Renaissance continued the traditions of Aristotle and Neoplatonists, leaving to his 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 manual for European doctors. And then Avicenna was forgotten for many centuries. Or rather, the name remained, but Avicenna’s recipes 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, the composition of medicines did not include dead matter in the form of chemical additives. 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 constructs; 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 the correspondence of the previous names of components to the current ones continues today.
Then we set about solving the problem 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 reconstructed using context or a general understanding of the qualities required to achieve the desired effect.
For example, many of Avicenna’s recipes use the concept of pulegic mint. What it is? Let us turn to the first book of the “Canon”, where all the varieties of mint are given. In particular, in the “Fudanage” section it is indicated that mint pulegium consists of a rarefied substance, drives away sweat, dries and strongly warms. It is already clear that we are talking about vasodilation. 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 balm), which obviously overlaps the properties that mint, including pulegium mint, can have.
By finding such a replacement, you can “modernize,” for example, Avicenna’s most important recipe for removing kidney stones, which is 100% effective.
How to remove kidney stones. Avicenna's recipe
Take one part of lavender flowers, two parts of mountain thyme (in Avicenna - 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 at the dacha, 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 strawberries 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 taking it, it becomes cloudy (mucus comes out), then grains of sand appear. Continue treatment for two months to a year until the urine becomes clear. The huge advantage of this method is that the stone will not pass through the ducts, causing excruciating pain.
Studying Avicenna's recipes in practice, researchers became convinced that they were very strong, designed for patients with a greater health reserve than today's people. Apparently, a thousand years ago the immune system was stronger, and people responded well to the active effects of drugs. We must make allowances for the changed environmental situation and the greater vulnerability of our body.
So, for example, one should be wary of the recommendation to treat men with St. John's wort. This very popular herb is purely feminine; men should not use it for longer than two weeks: impotence may occur. And we are accustomed 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 and 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's recipe
Take almonds. If it is bitter, wild, two kernels are enough; if it is sweet, four kernels are enough. 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 combined with half a teaspoon of thick honey - a paste is obtained, which should be kept in the cold. A drop of vinegar is dropped onto a pea-sized piece of pasta - a hissing sensation occurs in the presence of soda. 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 cannot store the drug for future use: the reaction must be repeated before each new use. A hissing “pea” is placed in the sore ear, plugged with cotton wool and held for an hour. 3-4 such procedures per day for several days will lead to complete recovery. Moreover, the pain in the ear is relieved the second time.
The Canon contains three recipes for treating ear inflammation. Those elements were selected that are repeated in all three: 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 (we were experimentally convinced that the drug is quite effective even without galban). The saffron mentioned by Avicenna is replaced by cinnamon. There is nowhere to get myrrh now; poppy, which is a narcotic, is unacceptable as a sleeping pill.
Infusion of 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 grains are dark burgundy 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 using a meat grinder. Pour this with red wine, heated to 50–60°, in a ratio of 1:10 and leave 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 30 g is drunk 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 will heal within a month). With high acidity, the wine should be dessert, with low acidity it should be dry. Healing will take place faster if the wine does not contain a preservative added to better preserve the drink (such wine can be purchased at the height of the season in wine-growing areas or use home-made wine).
Replacement of this recipe: chewing a cypress cone for a long time, until the ulcer heals.
Avicenna's recipe for longevity
Avicenna’s recipes do not lose their relevance today. One can only 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 legacy by European medicine and the oblivion of many of his works.
Restoring this heritage is a long, painstaking work, but quite realistic. It is only important not to drown in theorizing and test each recipe in practice.
Avicenna considered the art of maintaining health to be the main task of his life. Moreover, it is not an art that prevents death, rids the body of 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 inside the body.
Until natural death occurs, according to Avicenna, this is a means of preserving the human body. It is entrusted to two forces: natural, nourishing and providing replacement for what disappears from the body, and the force that makes the pulse beat.
This task is achieved by observing three modes:
Replacing moisture disappearing from the body;
Preventing the causes that cause and accelerate drying of the body;
Protecting the moisture 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 knead him slightly. Put the baby to sleep in a room where the air temperature is moderate. In summer, the baby is bathed with moderately warm water, in winter - moderately hot. It is best to start swimming after a long sleep.
Let the child be breastfed not by the mother, but by the nurse, for a week or two at first, until the mother’s nature balances out after childbirth. A nursing mother or other woman should not, according to Avicenna, succumb to such mental reactions as anger, sadness, fear, so that the baby does not absorb information that spoils nature with milk. To strengthen a child's nature, gentle rocking, music, and singing are very good. It is desirable that the mother sing more often (regardless of her skill and the assessment of the quality of this singing by herself and those around her): mother’s singing is in any case healing for the child’s nature.
A child should be breastfed for two years.
The little man should be protected in every possible way from severe anger, fear, sadness and insomnia. It is necessary to give him what he wants and remove from him what he does not like.
And the seasoned reader knows that on 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 are holding in your hands is unique in its content. The copybooks collected in it were not copied from old books. From time immemorial, these original and surprisingly effective recipes were passed down from teacher to student orally and were not intended for widespread use. All of them were collected in remote regions during search expeditions by Savely Kashnitsky. The author had the opportunity to observe the results of many medicinal prescriptions, shocking in their effectiveness, 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 recommendations given in it should be used only after agreement with your doctor.
Savely Kashnitsky
Pearls of Eastern Medicine
Review
Traditional medicine is an immense and multifaceted phenomenon. In the new book by S.E. Kashnitsky “Pearls of Oriental Medicine” attempts to give the broadest possible overview of 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 is systematized in the book, which allows you to quickly find the required method of help for various diseases.
However, when using the recipes given in the book in practice, reasonable caution is necessary: each organism is individual; what is good for one is not always acceptable for another. Therefore, anyone who dares to use recipes as recommendations must certainly agree on them with their doctor. Only in this case the risk of thoughtless self-medication will be minimized.
Professor
Doctor of Biological Sciences
© S.E. Kashnitsky
© AST Publishing House LLC
Review
Traditional medicine is an immense and multifaceted phenomenon. In the new book by S.E. Kashnitsky “Pearls of Oriental Medicine” attempts to give the broadest possible overview of 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 is systematized in the book, which allows you to quickly find the required method of help for various diseases.
However, when using the recipes given in the book in practice, reasonable caution is necessary: each organism is individual; what is good for one is not always acceptable for another. Therefore, anyone who dares to use recipes as recommendations must certainly agree on them with their doctor. Only in this case the risk of thoughtless self-medication 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 Eastern Medicine
The interest of Europeans in the East is probably as eternal as this conventional division into West and East itself, which has little to do with geography. Starting, probably, with the Greco-Persian wars, our ancient fellow countrymen understood: there, in the East, there was 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 sea powers ever satisfied this burning interest, this eternal mystery of the East.
Kipling's phrase: “West is West, East is East, and they cannot come together” with formulaic laconicism establishes the relationship of the 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 man and his health. The concept of “Oriental medicine” has emerged, which does not have clear semantic outlines, about which only one thing can be said more accurately: a different medicine.
It was created and developed over centuries in Persia and Arabia, in Tibet and Central Asia, in 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 cannot be reduced to one thing that it is not possible not only to give it and, accordingly, Eastern medicine, a clear definition, but even to confidently highlight the principles that distinguish it from the European medicine we are accustomed to. A Korean would answer this question with something different, but a Filipino would answer something completely different.
Nevertheless, we will try to outline, at least in the most general terms, the features of that vast concept that can very loosely be called Eastern medicine.
Ancient philosophers, observing how everything in nature is interconnected, considered the decisive event to be the separation by the Creator of light from darkness and the earth's firmament from water. Two pairs of opposites defined four categories, or “elements,” that underlie the universe.
The energy that gives life is called chi (or qi) in Chinese philosophy, prana in Indian philosophy, and pneuma in Persian philosophy. All these words are synonyms of the familiar word “air”, by inhaling which a person receives energy for life. Qigong therapy, prana yama are systems of breathing exercises that allow you to harmonize the body only through the correct distribution of energy throughout it. Biologically active points, united in meridians, are the channels through which the energy of the surrounding world enters the body. This is an approach radically different from that accepted in the West.
The macrocosm (stars and planets) is similar to the microcosm (atomic nuclei and elementary particles), just as man is similar to the Creator, but consists of dust, that is, chemical elements. A changing macrocosm certainly changes the microcosm - astrology studies these relationships. 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 (oriental, of course).
Everything, including the human body, consists of four primary elements - fire (hot), water (cold), earth (dry) and air (wet). Separation 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 is red, water is white, earth is brown, air is blue.
Human life is also divided into phases corresponding to the four primary elements: a newborn emerges from the water, a child floats in the air, a fire burns in a young man, an old man shrivels like earth.
The same four elements determine 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; sluggish phlegmatic people prefer cold, damp, sour food; restrained melancholic people, old people from youth, will choose dry and sweet foods, such as dried fruits; cheerful, “childish” sanguine people – fatty, oily foods.
This is how the breakdown of the primary elements, in itself, points us to the patterns of healthy eating that underlie Eastern medicine (which will be discussed in more detail below).
Exactly in accordance with the same logic, it is better for a choleric person to live in the south, a phlegmatic person in the north, a melancholic person in the east, and a sanguine person in the west. And it is better for everyone to eat what grows in the area suitable for him - this is how the body adapts, using the leading primary element embedded in it. Violation of this principle leads to illness and, above all, to allergies, which is a kind of payment for adapting to someone else's elements.
Tibetan medicine - the most integral part of oriental medicine that has survived for several millennia - does not recognize operative, surgical intervention in the human body. With just the right selection of food, minerals, herbs, and aromatic substances, Tibetan doctors undertake to solve all the problems of a malfunctioning body.
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 concerning theoretical issues, and also compiled prescription reference books, which were 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.
Nowadays, Western civilization is experiencing an ecological crisis - a crisis of broken relationships between man and nature, when, due to imbalances introduced into the harmonious relationships of primary elements, people for the most part have become chronically ill. In such conditions, a return to initial concepts and attempts to achieve a disturbed balance are quite natural. That is why the whole world today has turned its attention to the achievements of Eastern medicine.
More and more patients are coming to medical centers where the principles of oriental medicine are applied. More and more pilgrims are flocking to Asia, to the autochthonous bearers of ancient knowledge. Bookstore shelves are filled with literature revealing the secrets of Eastern medicine.
The information collected in the book is fragmentary: in some regions of the East (Mongolia, Buryatia, Uzbekistan, Tatarstan, Bulgaria, which I also conditionally classify as the East, since the information received there comes from Turkey, Greece, Byzantium) I had a chance to visit personally and communicate with figures of ancient medical culture, I met with some interlocutors from China, Taiwan, and Korea in other territories. You should also not look for completeness in recipes that help cure ailments. Only those that were conveyed to me by the bearers of this knowledge are given.
The information contained in my notes is purely practical. I am not trying, like other learned authors, to explain, for example, the basics of reflexology. But here are the simplest recommendations: massaging which points in which cases will help get rid of the most common ailments.
As a rule, I took the recipes of oriental doctors on faith: I simply did not have the physical opportunity to test everything on myself and my loved ones. In cases where such checks were carried out, I specifically stipulate this. But, I believe, you can trust the information I provide 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 periodicals and had many responses from readers who were able to use the recipes I gave.
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 treating diseases using traditional methods for the convenience of readers, arranged in alphabetical order.
In conclusion, I would like to thank all my interlocutors who selflessly shared their knowledge with me and the readers. Special thanks to Professor Ivan Pavlovich Neumyvakin, chief physician of the Naran Tibetan clinic in Moscow, Svetlana Galsanovna Choyzhinimaeva and 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
Avicenna's ancient recipe
Everyone has probably heard this name. But few people know anything specific about this man. Medieval Arab thinker. Philosopher, doctor, musician. Well, back then all the outstanding people were encyclopedists.
Abu Ali ibn Sina (in Latin pronunciation - Avicenna) during the Arab Renaissance continued the traditions of Aristotle and Neoplatonists, leaving to his 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 manual for European doctors. And then Avicenna was forgotten for many centuries. Or rather, the name remained, but Avicenna’s recipes 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, the composition of medicines did not include dead matter in the form of chemical additives. 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 constructs; 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 the correspondence of the previous names of components to the current ones continues today.
Then we set about solving the problem 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 reconstructed using context or a general understanding of the qualities required to achieve the desired effect.
For example, many of Avicenna’s recipes use the concept of pulegic mint. What it is? Let us turn to the first book of the “Canon”, where all the varieties of mint are given. In particular, in the “Fudanage” section it is indicated that mint pulegium consists of a rarefied substance, drives away sweat, dries and strongly warms. It is already clear that we are talking about vasodilation. 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 balm), which obviously overlaps the properties that mint, including pulegium mint, can have.
By finding such a replacement, you can “modernize,” for example, Avicenna’s most important recipe for removing kidney stones, which is 100% effective.
How to remove kidney stones. Avicenna's recipe
Take one part of lavender flowers, two parts of mountain thyme (in Avicenna - 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 at the dacha, 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 strawberries 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 taking it, it becomes cloudy (mucus comes out), then grains of sand appear. Continue treatment for two months to a year until the urine becomes clear. The huge advantage of this method is that the stone will not pass through the ducts, causing excruciating pain.
Studying Avicenna's recipes in practice, researchers became convinced that they were very strong, designed for patients with a greater health reserve than today's people. Apparently, a thousand years ago the immune system was stronger, and people responded well to the active effects of drugs. We must make allowances for the changed environmental situation and the greater vulnerability of our body.
So, for example, one should be wary of the recommendation to treat men with St. John's wort. This very popular herb is purely feminine; men should not use it for longer than two weeks: impotence may occur. And we are accustomed 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 and 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's recipe
Take almonds. If it is bitter, wild, two kernels are enough; if it is sweet, four kernels are enough. 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 combined with half a teaspoon of thick honey - a paste is obtained, which should be kept in the cold. A drop of vinegar is dropped onto a pea-sized piece of pasta - a hissing sensation occurs in the presence of soda. 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 cannot store the drug for future use: the reaction must be repeated before each new use. A hissing “pea” is placed in the sore ear, plugged with cotton wool and held for an hour. 3-4 such procedures per day for several days will lead to complete recovery. Moreover, the pain in the ear is relieved the second time.
The Canon contains three recipes for treating ear inflammation. Those elements were selected that are repeated in all three: 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 (we were experimentally convinced that the drug is quite effective even without galban). The saffron mentioned by Avicenna is replaced by cinnamon. There is nowhere to get myrrh now; poppy, which is a narcotic, is unacceptable as a sleeping pill.
Infusion of 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 grains are dark burgundy 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 using a meat grinder. Pour this with red wine, heated to 50–60°, in a ratio of 1:10 and leave 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 30 g is drunk 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 will heal within a month). With high acidity, the wine should be dessert, with low acidity it should be dry. Healing will take place faster if the wine does not contain a preservative added to better preserve the drink (such wine can be purchased at the height of the season in wine-growing areas or use home-made wine).
Replacement of this recipe: chewing a cypress cone for a long time, until the ulcer heals.
Avicenna's recipe for longevity
Avicenna’s recipes do not lose their relevance today. One can only 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 legacy by European medicine and the oblivion of many of his works.
Restoring this heritage is a long, painstaking work, but quite realistic. It is only important not to drown in theorizing and test each recipe in practice.
Avicenna considered the art of maintaining health to be the main task of his life. Moreover, it is not an art that prevents death, rids the body of 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 inside the body.
Until natural death occurs, according to Avicenna, this is a means of preserving the human body. It is entrusted to two forces: natural, nourishing and providing replacement for what disappears from the body, and the force that makes the pulse beat.
This task is achieved by observing three modes:
Replacing moisture disappearing from the body;
Preventing the causes that cause and accelerate drying of the body;
Protecting the moisture 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 knead him slightly. Put the baby to sleep in a room where the air temperature is moderate. In summer, the baby is bathed with moderately warm water, in winter - moderately hot. It is best to start swimming after a long sleep.
Let the child be breastfed not by the mother, but by the nurse, for a week or two at first, until the mother’s nature balances out after childbirth. A nursing mother or other woman should not, according to Avicenna, succumb to such mental reactions as anger, sadness, fear, so that the baby does not absorb information that spoils nature with milk. To strengthen a child's nature, gentle rocking, music, and singing are very good. It is desirable that the mother sing more often (regardless of her skill and the assessment of the quality of this singing by herself and those around her): mother’s singing is in any case healing for the child’s nature.
A child should be breastfed for two years.
The little man should be protected in every possible way from severe anger, fear, sadness and insomnia. It is necessary to give him what he wants and remove from him what he does not like.
Traditional medicine is an immense and multifaceted phenomenon. In the new book by S.E. Kashnitsky “Pearls of Oriental Medicine” attempts to give the broadest possible overview of 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 is systematized in the book, which allows you to quickly find the required method of help for various diseases.
However, when using the recipes given in the book in practice, reasonable caution is necessary: each organism is individual; what is good for one is not always acceptable for another. Therefore, anyone who dares to use recipes as recommendations must certainly agree on them with their doctor. Only in this case the risk of thoughtless self-medication 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 conventional division into West and East itself, which has little to do with geography. Starting, probably, with the Greco-Persian wars, our ancient fellow countrymen understood: there, in the East, there was 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 sea powers ever satisfied this burning interest, this eternal mystery of the East.
Kipling's phrase: “West is West, East is East, and they cannot come together” with formulaic laconicism establishes the relationship of the 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 man and his health. The concept of “Oriental medicine” has emerged, which does not have clear semantic outlines, about which only one thing can be said more accurately: a different medicine.
It was created and developed over centuries in Persia and Arabia, in Tibet and Central Asia, in 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 cannot be reduced to one thing that it is not possible not only to give it and, accordingly, Eastern medicine, a clear definition, but even to confidently highlight the principles that distinguish it from the European medicine we are accustomed to. A Korean would answer this question with something different, but a Filipino would answer something completely different.
Nevertheless, we will try to outline, at least in the most general terms, the features of that vast concept that can very loosely be called Eastern medicine.
Ancient philosophers, observing how everything in nature is interconnected, considered the decisive event to be the separation by the Creator of light from darkness and the earth's firmament from water. Two pairs of opposites defined four categories, or “elements,” that underlie the universe.
The energy that gives life is called chi (or qi) in Chinese philosophy, prana in Indian philosophy, and pneuma in Persian philosophy. All these words are synonyms of the familiar word “air”, by inhaling which a person receives energy for life. Qigong therapy, prana yama are systems of breathing exercises that allow you to harmonize the body only through the correct distribution of energy throughout it. Biologically active points, united in meridians, are the channels through which the energy of the surrounding world enters the body. This is an approach radically different from that accepted in the West.
The macrocosm (stars and planets) is similar to the microcosm (atomic nuclei and elementary particles), just as man is similar to the Creator, but consists of dust, that is, chemical elements. A changing macrocosm certainly changes the microcosm - astrology studies these relationships. 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 (oriental, of course).
Everything, including the human body, consists of four primary elements - fire (hot), water (cold), earth (dry) and air (wet). Separation 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 is red, water is white, earth is brown, air is blue.
Human life is also divided into phases corresponding to the four primary elements: a newborn emerges from the water, a child floats in the air, a fire burns in a young man, an old man shrivels like earth.
The same four elements determine 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; sluggish phlegmatic people prefer cold, damp, sour food; restrained melancholic people, old people from youth, will choose dry and sweet foods, such as dried fruits; cheerful, “childish” sanguine people – fatty, oily foods
This is how the breakdown of the primary elements, in itself, points us to the patterns of healthy eating that underlie Eastern medicine (which will be discussed in more detail below).
Exactly in accordance with the same logic, it is better for a choleric person to live in the south, a phlegmatic person in the north, a melancholic person in the east, and a sanguine person in the west. And it is better for everyone to eat what grows in the area suitable for him - this is how the body adapts, using the leading primary element embedded in it. Violation of this principle leads to illness and, above all, to allergies, which is a kind of payment for adapting to someone else's elements.
Tibetan medicine - the most integral part of oriental medicine that has survived for several millennia - does not recognize operative, surgical intervention in the human body. With just the right selection of food, minerals, herbs, and aromatic substances, Tibetan doctors undertake to solve all the problems of a malfunctioning body.
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 concerning theoretical issues, and also compiled prescription reference books, which were 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.
Nowadays, Western civilization is experiencing an ecological crisis - a crisis of broken relationships between man and nature, when, due to imbalances introduced into the harmonious relationships of primary elements, people for the most part have become chronically ill. In such conditions, a return to initial concepts and attempts to achieve a disturbed balance are quite natural. That is why the whole world today has turned its attention to the achievements of Eastern medicine.
More and more patients are coming to medical centers where the principles of oriental medicine are applied. More and more pilgrims are flocking to Asia, to the autochthonous bearers of ancient knowledge. Bookstore shelves are filled with literature revealing the secrets of Eastern medicine.