Science or Fantasy?

is Ayurveda Science or Fantasy? Conversation between Dr. Poonam 👩🏽‍⚕️ and Scimmione 🦍. 

🦍 Dear dr poonam, how is an ayurvedic medical check conducted?

👩🏽‍⚕️ First, I will place 3 fingers on your wrist to examine your pulse.

🦍 And what do you feel with those 3 fingers? What are you searching?

👩🏽‍⚕️ From Index finger feel Vata dosha; From middle finger feel Pitta dosha; From ring finger feel Kapha dosha. In This examination a doctor checks different characteristics of the pulse: Movement, Rate, Rhythm, Force, Temperature, Consistency of the vein. In ancient times they did not have machinery and technology for examinations, so they were forced to use their sense.

🦍 Wait a moment. You are saying that now we have better instruments than when Ayurveda was created?

👩🏽‍⚕️  Well, certainly. Now we have thermometers, MRI scanners, dialysis machines…

🦍 So, why should we relate to an old rudimental science if we now have so much better? Shouldn't we burn all those old ayurvedic texts and concentrate on modern science?

👩🏽‍⚕️  You see, in modern times something has been gained, and something has been lost.

🦍 What has been lost?

👩🏽‍⚕️  In modern times we lost a model on what a healthy life is. We forgot. We run after symptoms, we are very efficient in catching them, and incredibly efficient when we want to do a drastic change in the body: with surgery we can replace a heart; with antibiotics we can kill millions of germs in 3 days; with chemotherapy we can destroy half the cells inside a human being. In modern medicine they treat you when you are sick. They concentrate on making something unpleasant or risky, disappear.

In ancient medicine, their first purpose was not to make you sick. They had a model, a precise description of a healthy and balanced life.

In ancient world, medicine was a part of a set of rules that regarded everything: how to eat, when to get married and to whom, what job you have to do, how you should do it, and so on.

Now we live in a world of freedom - but in many cases it is freedom to do wrong: to eat poison, to ruin your life with a stressing job, to go from one way to have fun to another way to have fun that are no fun, and so on.

🦍 I see what you mean. I can imagine people in the past having a simpler life, and somehow being happier - or less unhappy. But don’t you think that was a strong limitation on freedom?

👩🏽‍⚕️  Yes, big limitation on freedom. A father could tell a daughter what to do even when she was adult (and still does, in India); marriages were (and still are) combined by families. There are many things you can’t eat, many choices you can’t make.

🦍 And you don’t think modern life is better, with more freedom of choice?

👩🏽‍⚕️  Certainly. I want to marry who I want, do the job I want, eat the food that I want. I want to be in charge of my choices.

What I am saying is that in the path to gain certain forms of freedom we have also lost something. This is human history: for everything you gain, there is something you lose.

🦍 OK, we can talk more about that one of these days. For now, going back to the examination: what happens with these 3 fingers on my wrist?

👩🏽‍⚕️  I have three fingers on your wrist, on the radial artery. Index, middle and ring finger. In this moment, with the index finger I feel that the pulse is fast and strong. Too fast, too strong - but not the pulse of a sick person. 

🦍 So: there is an imbalance, but not enough to make me sick?

👩🏽‍⚕️  It is not a sickness. Your body is composed by the 3 doshas, and one must be prevalent; this is within normality, this is human nature. We are not all the same, this is fine. It simply  indicates a prevalence of Vata Dosha.

🦍 And what does that mean?

👩🏽‍⚕️ It means that you likely  have dry skin. Then, that probably you will be subject to joint pain; and that your mind will be very fast and you will have trouble keeping a line of thoughts for a long time. You will jump from one thought to another, like a scimmione on a tree. This is what it means to have a prevalence of Vata Dosha.

🦍 And what is the cause of that?

👩🏽‍⚕️ The primary cause is the moment of your conception, when sperm and ovum met.

Your father had his own prevalence of Dosha; same for your mother. These are elements that influenced your own prevalence. Also, they met in a certain geographical place, at a certain precise moment in time, a certain period of the year, with a certain weather, when there was a certain combination of planets in the sky.

🦍 That is astrology: with all due respect, bullsh… fantasy.

👩🏽‍⚕️ That is observation. But let’s continue another time. And don’t move so much, I can’t feel your pulse properly.