Reshaping Medical Learning

Background and aim: Guggulu is a resinous exudate obtained from the plant Commiphora wightii (Arn.) Bhand., which is used in Ayurvedic medicines for various ailments like anti-inflammatory conditions, hyperlipidemia, thyroid disorders etc. Guggulsterones E and Z are responsible for these broad ranges of pharmacological actions. Before incorporating it into medicinal formulations, shodhana (purification) has to be performed, which is a unique concept in Ayurveda. It covers the process of removal of physical and chemical impurities and also improves the efficacy of a drug. Many Shodhana (purification) procedures for Guggulu in different liquid media are mentioned in various Ayurvedic classical texts. Anandakanda, an Ayurvedic text, emphasises the purification of Guggulu in tila thaila (sesame oil) using a specialised apparatus, Dolayantra (swinging apparatus). The present study aims to carry out the preliminary physicochemical and phytochemical screening, quantification of Guggulsterones E and Z using HPTLC and GC-MS analysis of crude and purified Guggulu. Results: Significant variations were found in physicochemical and phytochemical parameters. Organoleptic evaluation showed notable variations in the physical characters. Before and after shodhana (purification), the mean concentrations of Guggulsterone E and Z revealed significant increase (at p<0.01). Few new compounds had been introduced to the purified Guggulu, according to the results of the GC-MS analysis. Conclusion: The traditional purification might have improved the physical features and phytochemical profileof Guggulu

This article presents the first in-depth textual analysis of the Razmnamah (Book of War), the Persian translation of the Mahabharata sponsored by the Mughal emperor Akbar in the late sixteenth century. I argue that the Razmnamah was a central literary work in the Mughal court and of deep relevance to Akbar’s imperial and political ambitions. I pursue my analysis of the Mughal Mahabharata in two sections, focusing first on the work’s Sanskrit sources and then on the translation practices one finds evidenced in the Persian text. In the first section, I outline how the Mughal translators accessed Sanskrit materials and identify the Sanskrit texts that served as the basis for the Persian translation. This framework helps reconstruct the nature of the Mahabharata as the Mughals knew it and provides both the conceptual and literary tools needed to pursue comparative textual analysis. In the second section, I examine the text of the Razmnamah in comparison with its Sanskrit sources to highlight some of the Mughal translators’ key strategies in reimagining the epic in Persian. This close reading traces several literary paradigms that offer insight into the crucial role the Razmnamah played in the production and reproduction of Mughal imperial culture. Taken as a whole, my analysis argues that the Razmnamah was a crucial component of the politico-cultural fashioning of Akbar’s court, whereby the Mughals developed a new type of Indo-Persian imperial aesthetic.

Comparative retrospective open-label study of ayurvedic medicines and their combination with allopathic drugs on asymptomatic and mildly-symptomatic COVID-19 patients

Student Number 3105008 Supervisor(s) Anna Scott, Jed Wentz Title Approaching a Rhetorical Performance of Late 18th Century Keyboard Music from the Methods of john Walker Research Question How can we apply declamatory principles from late 18th century English treatises to historical performance of late 18th century solo keyboard music? Summary There is no doubt that the art of classical rhetoric played an important role in the conception and performance of music in the 18th century. In order to better understand how to perform rhetorically in an historically informed manner, an understanding of declamation as it was understood in the late 18th century is key. This thesis uses the written methods of English actor-turned-elocutionist, John Walker, as the basis to proposing a rhetorical approach to late 18th century solo keyboard repertoire. Linguistic concepts of sense, structure, style, and delivery (acting) are likened to analogous concepts in galant music and supported with statements from musical treatises and examples from musical works. Two main performance case studies are considered for comparison: the first linguistic, being Walker’s 1787 annotated version of Edward IV’s speech from William Shakespeare’s "Richard III"; and the second musical, being the Adagio movement of Joseph Haydn’s 1794 Keyboard Sonata Hob. XVI:52. It is hoped that this investigation will not only expand the horizons of the author’s solo performances, but will also provide interesting and useful tools for other musicians. Short Bio Anders Muskens began modern piano studies at the age of 4 in Edmonton, Canada. He graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Music, Toronto under the tutelage of Dr. Irina Konovalov. He now studies fortepiano and harpsichord at the Royal Conservatoire of The Hague with Dr. Bart van Oort, Petra Somlai, and Fabio Bonizzoni. He received numerous awards including: 1st place at the Early Music Young Ensemble Competition at the London Exhibition of Early Music 2018 in a duo with soprano Tinka Pypker; and the „Hofkapelle Elbe-Elster“ prize at the „Gebrüder Graun Prize“ 2018 with his ensemble Das Neue Mannheimer Orchester.

Introduction:People have been using herbs for health care since Vedic times. Due to resurgence of ayurveda, utilization and consumption of herbal medicines is tremendously increasing leading to a significant percentage of the pharmaceutical market. The huge commercial benefits of herbal products are capturing the interest of pharmaceutical companies worldwide. Hence the safety and quality of medicinal plant materials and finished herbal medicinal products have become a major concern for health authorities, pharmaceutical industries as well as to the public. Presently, plenty of clinical trials are being conducted on herbal medicines; however, absence of harmonized classification has led to various confusions. The most important concern is the disputed identity of ayurvedic formulations sold under different brand names in different regions of the country and world. Recently, allopathic medicines have been classified by WHO on the basis of ATC/DDD (Anatomical- Therapeutic-Chemical/Daily Defined Dose) pattern of classification. The absence of such type of classification for ayurvedic products creates a situation of non recognition of these products in the international market. Hence there is a need to develop a classification system that is on the lines of ATC/DDD so that particular herb may qualify a product to be recognised under one name all over the world.Materials and Methods:Keeping in view the above scenario, a classification system is being proposed for ayurvedic products. The ayurvedic formulations and their site of action have been searched from various Ayurvedic texts. Internet sources such as Pubmed, Google Scholar, JSTOR etc.Results:The major reason for adopting similar classification for herbal medicines is that ayurvedic texts given by various scholars are published in Sanskrit or in the local/regional languages which make it difficult for the researchers to access, understand and interpret the knowledge shared.Conclusion:It is utmost important to generate such classification for herbal medicines as it will generate a classification data which can further be exploited for safety, efficacy as well as quality control purposes. Moreover, innovative classification will be helpful to provide standardized as well as a uniform way to classify the various herbal drugs and to generate new avenues for further ayurvedic research with more degree of precision. The classification will enable a product to be known under one banner/name at international level. Since the market is flooded with formulations related with neural disorders, hence herbal products used in neural disorders have been taken in the first phase.

Ayurvedic medicines are available in the market as over-the-counter products. Today people use prescription and nonprescription medicines along with Ayurvedic medicines for quick relief from ailments. In the ancient texts of Ayurveda, the concept of interactions with various examples of food interactions and food-drug interactions are mentioned. Recent studies and publications reported drug interactions of Ayurveda medicines and modern drugs. In the present review article, the concept of interactions mentioned in the Ayurvedic texts along with the examples of food interactions, food-drug interactions and the recent research work and publications indicating the interactions of the Ayurvedic drugs and drug interactions of Ayurvedic medicines and modern drugs are compiled. This will help the consumer of the prescription and nonprescription medicines with the Ayurvedic medicines to be cautious about the probable interactions.

Ripe and unripe: Concepts of health and sickness in ayurvedic medicine

Qualitative and quantitative studies on the chemical changes during Ayurvedic detoxification process of Acorus calamus Linn. (Indian Vacha)

The World Health Organization (WHO) has recognized the importance of integrating traditional systems of medicine, including Ayurveda, with conventional medicine, and has taken several initiatives to promote this integration. The Ministry of AYUSH, Government of India, agreed to host two WHO Working Group Meeting that took place at National Institute of Ayurveda (2018) and at Institute of Teaching and Research in Ayurveda (2019) for developing the WHO Benchmarks in Ayurveda with the participation of 27 experts from the six regions of World Health Organization. These WHO Benchmarks on Training and Practice of Ayurveda were published in March 2022. Excluding the author, 23 (89%) of the experts which participated in the said meetings answered a questionnaire about the integration of Ayurveda and allopathic medicine. A very significant majority of these experts (95%) considered that Ayurveda can make important contributions to conventional medicine and are in favor of the integration of Ayurveda and allopathic medicine. There is also a majority consensus that conventional physicians should have training in Ayurveda at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and that they should have training in Ayurvedic remedies. A large proportion of the experts consulted consider the prevailing view in the Ayurvedic government and official environment in India to be in favor of integration with allopathy, and a significant but somewhat smaller number appreciate this same trend in the Ayurvedic academic field of India. It is significant that almost two thirds believe that in the West, Ayurveda should be a specialty within conventional medicine.

Tamak Shwasa has been elaborately described in almost all ayurvedic text. Tamak Shwasa is a troublesome major disorder of pranvaha srotas. In modern medicine it is closely resembles with Bronchial Asthma. Bronchial Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of airways that is characterised by responsiveness of the tracheo-bronchial tree to a multiplicity of stimuli. It is manifested clinically by paroxysms of dysponea, cough and wheezing.In today’s stressful modern urbanized living, incidence of asthma is considerably increasing. India has an estimated 15-20 million asthmatics. In contemporary modern science, management of Bronchial Asthma is carried out with usage of bronchodilators, leukotriene antagonist, mast cell stablizers and corticosteroids. Long lasting usageof these drugs produces adverse affects & also reduces the effectiveness of the therapy.So there is need of safe and effective medicine in Ayurveda for the treatment and management of Tamak Shwasa. In Charak Samhita the principle of management of Tamak shwasa is based on Vata-Kaphahara. Shatyadi yoga mentioned by Acharya Charaka for shwasa chikitsa, is adopted for the treatment of Bronchial Asthma.

Purpose:In original Ayurvedic classics viz. in Caraka Samhita & Susruta Samhita, thousands of Medicinal plants and their parts are prescribed in various diseases. Medicinal Plants are not available at one place, rather found at different part of our country i.e. Vatsanabha, Jatamansa, Devadaru, in northen India (Himalaya region); Agara, Paga, in Eastern India; Samudraphala, Kupalu, in southern India and Guggalu, Asvagandha, in western India. These are a few examples; many more can be seen in Ayurvedic texts. It is worthy to mention here that seed, root, root bark, stem, stem bark, tuber, rhizome, leaf, flower, exudate, latex, fruit etc. are the various plant parts which are used to prepare medicine in Ayurveda. Further, those parts are not available in one season and also at one Geographical region of our country. To a physician or to a Ayurvedic scholar, it is not possible to see all plants as they are grown in different regions. For proper knowledge they are required to be kept at one place, where one can see and acquire practical knowledge. Thus Museum is the best place to keep them in best condition. Its also essential as per CCIM norms. So all about brief study of dravya guna museums importance, maintenance and related problems & solution is given.Method:Method of glycerin preservation is adopted 50% glycerin + 50% hot water mixed with 1 tab of aspirin and put the plant part for 15 days then dry and mount.Result:This type of preservation has long term stability without loosing there normal color elasticity and texture.Conclusion:This is new and betters method for making herbarium preservation with lower cost for long time.

Mimansa

Psoriasis is described in Ayurveda as ek-kushta, it is type of kshudrakushta. The number of people suffering from Psoriasis all over the world is increasing progressively. Ayurvedic medicine is oriented toward prevention, health maintenance and treatment of diseases. There is large number of drugs of herbal and mineral origin mentioned in Ayurvedic texts, regarding the treatment of ek-kushta. The present case study is successful Ayurvedic management of a case of ek-kushta (psoriasis). Here a case report of a 35 years-male having with the complaint of ubhay pad pradeshi twak aaraktavarniya twakavaivarnya, kandu, twakrukshata etc. since 2 months. He was treated with Ayurvedic herbs & some panchkarma procedure which give effective result with Ayurvedic Management.

Main aim of Ayurveda is to maintain heath of healthy person and make free from diseases to diseased person. This aim of Ayurveda is proved by many acharya by applying ayurvedic fundamentals. One of them is ayurvedic medicine. Which plays important role in ayurvedic treatment. Acharya focus on preparation of herbal drugs along with the quality of the drug. This drug has an appropriate qualities and significant result on particular diseases. Kshara is one of important the ayurvedic formulation which is used in various diseases. It has a unique quality than other drugs. It is an alkali preparation of either by single herb or multiple herb. By its unique qualities many kruchhra sadhya diseases are treated. Now a day we see that the ayurvedic formulations are not much effective on the diseases. The causes are many more such as the low efficacy of medicinal plant , wrong method of preparation etc. available market preparation are not much effective and many more products are fail to maintain quality of the drug as per ayurvedic text. If we make an ayurvedic formulation according to ayurvedic text with standard operating procedure by maintaining quality of the drug we can get significant effects on some particular diseases. In this paper we explain one of the standard procedure of Yavakshara preparation according to Sushrut Samhita. total estimation of how much raw material used, time require to prepare yavakshara, how much loss of raw drug and material and method of yavakshara preparation is explained.

Background: Vatari Guggulu is an Ayurvedic Medicine used in the treatment of Vata disorders. It contains Vatari taila (Castor oil), Shuddha gandhaka (purified Sulphur), Haritaki (Terminalia chebula Retz.), Vibhitaki (Terminalia bellirica [Gaertn.] Roxb.), Amla (Emblica officinalis Gaertn) and guggul (Purified Commiphora mukul Hook). As per the Ayurvedic texts, it is widely used clinically in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, hip pain, sciatica, gout, joint pain, and burning sensation. However, there are no systematic toxicity studies were performed to scientifically evaluate the safety of Vatari Guggulu. Objectives: The present study was designed to investigate the safety of Vatari Guggulu in acute and 90-days repeated dose oral toxicity as per Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development guidelines 423 and 408. Materials and Methods: During the acute toxicity, Vatari Guggulu was orally administered at a single limit dose of 2000 mg/kg. The mortality and clinical signs were observed for 14 days. Similarly, the 90-days repeated dose toxicity was studied by administering the Vatari Guggulu at a limit dose of 1000 mg/kg. Results: In the acute toxicity, there were no signs of toxicity, and the LD50 was calculated as >2000 mg/kg. During the 90 days of repeated dose toxicity, the Vatari Guggulu at the dose of 1000 mg/kg did not show any signs of toxicity as compared to the control. The hematological, serum biochemical, and urine analysis profile of the Vatari Guggulu at the dose of 1000 mg/kg did not show any significant difference as compared to the control (P > 0.05). Further, the histopathological data of control and Vatari Guggulu-treated rats were found to be normal. Conclusions: It was concluded that the test drug Vatari Guggulu is found to be safe upto 2000 mg/kg in acute toxicity and 1000 mg/kg in 90-days repeated dose oral toxicity study. The NOAEL of Vatari Guggulu is established as 1000 mg/kg/day.