Medicine or Adjuvant ? : Dabur Lal Tail
For quite some time I wanted to write on this subject of Natural remedies.
The recent mail from Indiblogger triggered
that interest in me to open the web link
of Dabur’s Laltail and two things caught my attention. One was the hindi word for 'oil' ( sanskrit thailam). It could have been spelt 'thel' or 'thail' which are definitely different from 'Tail'. Some one should not make fun that the child would end up with a 'red tail' - ha ha just in lighter vein :)
The other one is the statement “ Ayurvedic Medicine”. Is it medicine or adjuvant?
We
will come back to this later, as I like to touch upon why I wanted to write on natural remedies.
Ever since my father, in his 80+, was successfully cured of his nervous
disorder through an ayurvedic doctor in Kerala I wanted to write on this
subject viz Chemical based Allopathy vis a vis Nature based Remedies.
In 2010,
suddenly his speech started to slur and developed difficulty in eating.
We thought it was facial palsy which could be temporary and with some
physiotherapy he would recover. It was not to be.
After treating for more than four months under
special supervision at NIMHANS Bangalore and other specialists in the field, we were losing hopes of his recovery. He could
not swallow even normal liquid food and had gone in to deep depression
resulting in loss of weight. All that the specialists could do was prescribe a
tablet –costing nearly Rs 57 per day- that temporarily strengthened his
nerves in throat and mouth so that he could eat some food. After an hour the
problem would be back with a bang. Slurred speech and uncontrollable saliva
secretion made his days quite miserable.
The name of the disorder was myasthenia
gravis.
A sinking person would cling to anything
that offers hope. Our attention turned towards ayurvedic remedy. Through
fortunate circumstances he was led to an Ayurvedic specialist near Palakkad and
better days began. He did not mind the extreme bitterness of couple of decoctions
nor the trouble of preparing them fresh everyday. Supported with few ayurvedic tablets his condition gradually
improved. Within next six months his speech returned to near normal he could eat
food without any difficulty and started
gaining the body weight!!
One of my uncles who visited him later
considered it as a “miracle” recovery. I responded saying 'our body itself is a
miracle'. Nature has gifted everyone with
a programmed mechanism to recover from injuries and ailments and diseases
provided we know how to recognise it. We
needlessly intervene in its mechanism with our own chemical based correction
which not only supresses the symptoms of one disease but also creates many undesirable
side effects !!
Today most natural therapists recommend fasting and resting as the pre-requisite to help the body to work on its damage control. Ayurvedic herbs mostly help as very good adjuvants in strengthening the mechanism of repair rather than directly dealing with the disease. They provide the necessary tools to the system to correct and eliminate undesirable toxins which are responsible for the disease unlike the allopathy that suppress and accumulate undesirable chemicals inside the body. Thus it aggravates the problems further to complicate the life of the individual.
During the treatment period my father was
also prescribed medicated oil massage
which very religiously he used to
apply everyday. That reminded me of the frequent appeals of my mother for
weekly oil bath a typical south indian tradition in our younger days.
She is a staunch believer of regular oil
bath for cooling the body the way oil cools the auto engine. She never gave up
that comparison despite our protests that a steaming hot water bath after
oiling the body could never cool the body. Little we understood the connotation
of cooling in traditional system is
different from external bathing condition. However with passing years it dawned
on me that even the exposed skin is a living cell and can absorb and transfer
the molecules by osmotic diffusion that can help in absorption of useful
nutrients through blood
Coming back to Dabur’s Laltail, it is good
to see traditional knowledge is being experimented and getting validated through modern way of
scientific experimentation. This will go
a long way in reinforcing the new generation
that what is traditional does not mean outdated belief systems but very
much live and kicking to be noticed for the benefit of mankind.
Since the use of Laltail is being
recommended for all babies for a healthier growth, it is preferable to call it
as an Ayurvedic Adjuvant rather than Ayurvedic Medicine. In my humble
understanding of English language the word medicine connotes that which helps
"to cure a disease " whereas an adjuvant is
the one which supports and accelerates the benefits of a nutrient or medicine.
