Concept of disease
In late 19th, and 20th centuary microorganisms were considered only, if not , the main cause of disease in allopathic medicine. That is called “germ theory of disease”. But lately the concept has beenchanged and broadened, now it is accepted that disease condition is a very specific stage of existence of all the three factors host, agent and environment at that time. This is explained as epidemiological triad or disease triangle. Avoiding the specific existence of even a single element of disease triangle may give us undesired condition. This theory is very close with Ayurvedic theory of causation of disease.
- Disease condition (The triangle is complete here): For the discare condition to be complete, agent should have weak host immune condition and favorable environment to grow and multiply. If host and environment factor are not in favor of agent, triangle will be incomplete and the disease will voccur.
- Allopathic treatment (The triangle is not complete here): Here the agent condition is made so weak that it cannot cause any disease i.e. allopathic medicine makes the agent either weak or kill it, thus the triangle will not be complete.
- Ayurvedic treatment(The triangle is not complete here): Here the host and environment factors are made unfavorable for the agent i.e. the host immune system is made so strong that the agent cannot cause any disease.
According to Ayurveda, the unbalanced stage of three physiological humors (Dosha) – Vata, Pitta and Kapha by any means will only be the cause of disease. And unbalanced dosha condition is brought about by improper Aahar (food habit) and daily activities i.e. environment factor of triangle Krimi (Pathogens and Parasite) i.e. agent factor of the triangle. Here Vata, Pitta and Kapha itself represents the host factor of triangle.
Treatment Approach in Ayurveda: In Ayurveda medicine are used to establish the balanced stage of the physiological unit (Vata, Pitta and Kapha), or it targets the other factors of disease triangle rather than microorganism (agent). For treatment simply the goal of Ayurvedic treatment is to make person strong immunologically, not to kill microorganism. It should be remembered that we all are exposed frequently to the pathogens but only few, and less frequently develops disease. Ayurveda believs that it is not the Krimi (microorganism) that is important to cause the disease but what is important is your tridosha condition. Though it regards microorganism as cause of disease but treatment approach is mainly towards the tridosha. This ultimately may work as an antimicrobial treatment. So a single Ayurvedic medicine can be used in much disease (which acts through dosha) seeing the strong adaptive capacity of pathogen, Ayurvedic approach of treatment seems very appropriate logically than the allopathic approach. It is not worthy that most of the present antibiotics may be resisted in coming 20 yrs according to WHO.