Scriptures and Textbooks

It is a challenge and an opportunity to go through ancient scriptures. The challenge is to build up a mental picture, without the help of modern concepts like infection, inflammation etc. The opportunity is to understand an equally important and relevant logic, which was once practiced elaborately. Understanding words and going beyond them is very important. Whenever a modern student of ayurveda starts reading susrutha samhitha he might be unknowingly wearing a pair of glasses with the power adjusted to read modern surgery textbooks. Ayurvedic texts are more of “concepts” than “ideas”.” Snigdhatha” is more a ‘concept ‘, while oil is its practical ‘idea’. Differentiating a concept from an idea is very important while reading ayurvedic texts. On earlier days an expert teacher was always training the disciple. So the question of self-study seldom comes. “Ancient scriptures” are different from “Text books” .A scripture is an idea to preserve some valuable wisdom learned, memorized and practiced by a certain school of thinkers. It might have not been accessible to disciples at that era. But modern books are accessible to all. Textbooks seldom need a commentary. The Textbook itself is an explanation to something. But scriptures demand clarifications from experts. So Scriptures should not be read as the way we read modern textbooks. More and more textbooks should come out explaining different concepts in the ancient scriptures and such books can be made textbooks. Scriptures should be preserved as references and should only be read after studying all the textbooks and understanding all the all the concepts

New approaches in jaloukavacharana

While doctor knowlittle was going through one of the old journals of Aryavaidyan(vol18 no2 november 2004-january 2005) an article relating to jalokavacharana was found.(It was written by V.A Prabhakaran, Reasearch Officer (Ay) kottakkal.)The basic concept was to remove blood through Butterfly IV needle from jalouka and the diseased site.According to the study,when leeches are used for jaloukavacharana, we cannot drain the required quantity of blood from the affected portion.So they recommended to try buterfly intravenous needle to be inserted in the lower part of jalouka for getting sufficient quantity of blood from the affected portion.Dr knowlittle recommend this article for all the readers.

Are leeches a potential source of infection?

Leeching is becoming popular again. Many young ayurvedic physicians ,especially Salakya and Salya specialists, are using the technique frequently.But some callenges are still to be solved.One among them is the possibility of leeches as a potential source of infection.Some studies suggests that leeches can cause infection.'Whitlock suggested that medicinal leech was a source of infection when used in plastic and reconstructive surgery because it carries Aeromonas hydrophila within its guts.The leech has no proteolytic gut enzyme andrelies on the bacteria to digest its blood.These infections are generally characterised by the onset of inflammation and supporation over 24 hours accompanied by the moderate fever and leucocytosis.The proteolytic action of bacteria may have its effect on the muscles.'Because a possibility of an infection can never be excluded ,an immediate protocol should be discussed by all the ayurvedic as well as modern doctors practicing leeching