VISION OF A PHYSICIAN: HEALTH WITHOUT MEDICINES

[PRESERVE YOUR HEALTH MORE WITH SAGACIOUS LIVING, THAN MEDICINES]

Regarding prescribing medicines don’t be ever-ready to shoot. If an ailment can be warded off by instructions as to foods and a change in living or life-style, don’t give medicines.

The aim is to keep your immune system active and effectively and vigorously working. You will be surprised to know that more than 80% of day-to-day ailments can be redressed by slight change in your mode of living, eating and sleeping, or by simply fasting, or skipping one time’s meal.

Folklore concoctions are age trusted means of handling your daily health problems. I still remember the delicious taste of a vinegar syrup (a sort of lemonade, prepared with vinegar instead of lemon), which I drank, in the morning, at a clinic of a Hakeem, for the indigestion, from which I suffered the previous night; and the instant ‘sweet’ comfort that followed thereby; or by a small packet of red powder, piami shifa, (i.e. ‘message of cure,’ as it was named), which tasted somewhat like a carminative. Carminative is a great and very effective household concoction, belonging to the age-old or classical allopathy. To this class also belonged many other concoctions, freely used, in those days, in our houses, as: e.g., for cough, a cough syrup of dark brown color, and a popular fever concoction, Epsom Salts or Milk of Magnesia for constipation. Ginger-tea was used, and still in vogue, for flatulent distension, or incarceration of flatus or incomplete eructation.

In homeopathy we also have emergency and prophylactic medicines, which are ‘mercy’ incarnate. Let’s give few examples:

• For a person prone to recurrent sore-throat, esp. from sour drinks or food. Give him a dose Belladonna 30, or 200, when he has taken such a thing. It’ll abort the whole episode of undergoing tonsillitis or quinsy.
• After having taken rich and fatty and fried food, you can abort the suffering from colicky indigestion, nausea and vomiting, or the so-called ‘food-poisoning’, by giving one to two doses of Pulsatilla, in rapid succession.
• Having partaken of extra spices, especially red chilies, Nux Vom. will save the situation from developing into serious dysentery or severe attack of piles.
• A child (or any delicate person) prone to abdominal colic, having taken potatoes in abundance, counter prophylactically with few doses of Colocynthis.
• A woman going to labor room, or a claustrophobic patient embarking on air travel, and who is sure of dying in the plain, give him a dose Aconite, one hour before boarding.He will sing hymn to homeopathy the remainder of his life.

But my stipulation was to discuss non medicinal measures for common ailments. That is pretty much easy and insightful. For a person inclined to get sore-throat from anything sour, I advise him to chew one or two dry dates slowly; or save one or two pieces of the same sour delicacy and sprinkle it a bit generously with black pepper and salt and chew or suck it slowly delightfully. The throat will forget to have eaten anything sour. I’ve discussed this issue in a previous article of mine: Look Younger, Live Longer: the Homeopathic Way. I’ve told there that if you have a plate of fruits, some of which are very sour and some other quite ripe and sweet save the latter to be taken at the end. Or after partaking of sour fruits, e.g. citrus or plums or strawberries, eat a banana, or chew the roots of licorice.

In case of sensitivity to spices, when you are compelled to partake of very highly spicy and seasoned dish, and fear an intestinal cataclysm the next morning—either bloody dysentery or a hemorrhoidal attack, the same can be effectively averted by taking two spoonful of ispaghol husk in a glass of water, within an hour after the meal.

In case of excessively rich and fatty food, and consumption of it to the full, a dose of carminative, as a prophylactic, will suffice to help digest this assorted conglomerate. With such heavy and rich ‘fodder’ take care never to drink water. If you want to partake of something fluid, let it be qehva or herbal tea, nothing cold. Ginger plus Cinnamon qehva will answer the best.

For a habit of getting headache from shopping or sun, don’t go out without drinking a large glass of water or a soda and fizzy drink. Or a glass of juice would be preferable.

If one is disposed to getting distension of abdomen, or the so-called flatulent distension, after eating, avoid eating flatulent foods. Examples are pulses, cauliflower, slimy vegetables, yogurt, grams and gram flour. Use ginger lavishly in your cooking.

Yogurt should be avoided in case of hemorrhoids, sinusitis, asthma, sore-throat and cough, and flatulence and abdominal colic. Yogurt should also be avoided by corpulent and obese persons. It should not be in their daily menu. Phlegmatic constitutions should avoid yogurt and cold milk, and butter-milk. Garlic, Ginger, Cinnamon, Asafetida, Cardamom, etc. should be their friends to keep them in best of trim.

Regular life is sure to keep a person in the best of form, physically, mentally, and also spiritually. One’s life should not go against Nature’s mores. Nature’s needs are our basic needs, which are woven into our very texture. Religio-cultural hindrances and modern technological transgressions of life-style would certainly bring deranging effects on the individual’s health and the culture of society at large. One of the biggest disrupting effects is in the form of corruption of the bio-clock. Bio-clock of every living being is intimately attuned with the changes of Nature: sun-rising, sun-setting, autumn, winter, spring and summer, waning, waxing moon and so on and so forth. Even seeds germinate and bring forth fruits in their own seasons.

‘Early to bed and early to rise’ has been the dictum and recipe for healthy and happy living. Modern man, in the present civilization, cannot go to bed with the birds, nor can he rise up with the first chirp of the birds. Modern man, keeping up with the modern civilization, can enliven his nights, for intellectual and social purposes, may go to sleep late, but must rise up with the sun and the birds. Early morning risers always feel blessed and energetic. Morning has very invigorating effect on the total health and being of the individual. Josh, an Urdu poet, says:

            For the proof of God’s existence, for the visionary people like us,

            The bewitchment of the Morning air would suffice,

            Even though there were no apostles or prophets propagating it.    

D. H. Lawrence pointed to the fact as to why the birds, who have no concept of nest or home, retrace their flight to reach their nests with the setting of the sun. He theorizes that at the time of sunset the circulation of blood starts flowing down towards body with more vigor than in the morning when it flows upward to the brain. With this change of drift in circulation in the evening the birds start feeling heavy in the body and sleepy in the brain: therefore the backward flight to their resting places.   There can be no more beautiful explanation for the working of the Bio-clock!

So, we should live close to Nature, and try to mend our normal wears and tears with natural and harmless means. Take rest with a blank mind; stop being nervous. Don’t take much fast foods. Cut down spices to the minimum. Take nourishing and non stimulating foods. Drink a lot of water. Take sweets in the form of fruits; or concentrated sweet in the form of honey.  For more facts read my Series of ‘Vision of a physician’. For constipation read my article: ‘Constipation is no Disease’.http://www.homeopathyworldcommunity.com/profiles/blogs/constipation-not-a-disease