Дорно дахины уламжлалт анагаах ухаан, 2012, 2(3)
THE PARADIGM SHIFT IN TRADITIONAL MONGOLIAN MEDICINE (XVIII century)
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A new paradigm containing progresses, unique opinions can be seen on pages of “The
Mongolian Four Medical Tantras” written by Sumbe khanba Ishbaljor, and
"Satisfaction for the Readers" or Uzegsdiin Bayasgalan by Jigmeddanzanjamts and
"Secrets of Prescription Recipes" or Uvidasyn Dalai by Mindol Jambal.
These scholars reflected new concepts that were not specifically clear in the Four
Fundamentals such as warm and cold diseases which were the basis to categorize cold
and common diseases and treat them differently, and the theoretical and practical
understanding of the categorization of infectious diseases, in their book. In order to
clarify their paradigm, let’s refer to some historical pages.
According to resources we found, Sumbe khamba Ishbaljor detailed a number of new
theoretical and practical concepts which were never or seldom mentioned in The Four
Medical Tantras, in his book Rashaany Dusal (Essence of the Medical Tantra). He
expanded the list of common diseases from 3 wind (khii), bile (shar), phlegm (badgan)
to 6 (wind, bile, phlegm, blood, yellow fluid (shar us), nyan or khorkhoi (virus and
bacteria) and prescribed treatments for each of them. Also he established a concept of
10 important diseases and gave them satiric names making them easy to read and
understand as well as taught the ways to treat them.
Ishbaljir is worth to mention here due to his outstanding discovery. He corrected the
Four Medical Tantras’ erroneous concept identifying more disease reasons blood,
yellow fluid, and bacteria or virus to the existing 3, wind, bile, phlegm. There is no
concept of viral liver disease, which had been described among 18 liver diseases in the
Four Medical Tantras. But in reality, this disease occurs commonly. Viral liver disease
is not curable just by medicines against wind, bile and phlegm. However, the
appropriate medicine against virus plus medicines for the symptoms of wind, bile and
phlegm work well.
Another reform by Ishbaljor was that he clarified the concept of cold disease.
Ishbaljor described the cold disease in the chapter 5 of his Rashaany Tsagaan Shuuder
(White Dew of Medical Tantra) book. The chapter was divided further into 2 sections:
Ordinary Treatment of the Cold Disease and Contradiction of Cold Disease with Fever.
He mentioned “cold disease as heavy as earth” in his Rashaany Dusal (Essence of
Medical Tantra) book and later also mentioned the cold disease in Rashaany Khurim
(Accumulation of Medical Tantra). Some fragments from his texts are ”phlegm
malfunctions reduce fire energy of a body and it has features of earth and water, is
heavy and cool, falls into lower body though exists in upper body. And all cold diseases
were born from this. Wind is distributed to both hot and cold and is a friend to cold
under the moon...” or ”... because phlegm, wind-cold, blood, bile-hot, however many
(diseases) are classified, all belong to hot and cold”, ”falling into to cold bottom is like
putting into 9 death diseases”. Ishbaljor determined the cold diseases in complete
THE 4th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TRADITIONAL MEDICINE:
EVIDENCE-BASED DEVELOPMENT (8 - 9 July, 2012, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia)
66
manner describing cold diseases, cause of the diseases, general and individual
symptoms of them, diagnoses by urine and pulses as well as different categories of
them, body malfunctioning, useful and hurting food, behaviors and treatments.
Ishbaljor prescribed in his book that ”as a prevention from cold diseases, take a drip of
fire energy bursting preparation with tea in the morning for a month time during the
cold season”. This is evaluated as a useful remedy for people who reside in cold
temperatures. Another interesting remedy recommended by him is ”if the cold disease
is not healed by warm medicines, let the patient sit in a bath of cold water until he\she
shivers, and then give meat soup to sweat”. This is based on the possibility of healing
cold diseases with a cold antidote in their certain stage. Also it was a treatment method
used when cold converted to warmth in essence but cold stays in appearance. A concept
of six basic diseases and cold diseases has been accepted and confirmed in practice then
and now. Thomas Kuhn wrote “Successful transition from one paradigm to another via
revolution is the usual developmental pattern of the mature science” in his book The
Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Ishbaljor further developed the traditional medicine
and made a reform in it by the discovery of three more causes of diseases blood, bile us
and bacteria in addition to the existing causes wind, bile and phlegm. His theory was
that disease causes are wind, bile, phlegm, blood, yellow fluid, and bacteria or virus
individually and\or combined. Wind, bile, phlegm, blood, yellow fliud, and bacteria or
virus were called as diseases. This concept changed the Indian Ayurvedic medicine
utterly. He wrote about bacteria that “in a week after a birth a baby swallows 4000
bacteria. Also healthy bacteria are present in stomach, intestine and womb”.
The Four Medical Tantras concluded there are total of 16 diseases including 7 warm
stomach diseases, and 9 cold ones. The diseases were categorized, in brief, by eight
factors such as disharmony of wind, bile, phlegm, blood and toxin. The Four Medical
Tantras did not mention bacteria. It is pity that we found out that our Mongols first
discovered about stomach bacteria disease in the 18th century, long after someone else
discovered it again and announced the world. Thus, in conclusion, not studying the
main books by our ancestors who reformed the theory of the Tibetan medicine, and not
verifying The Four Medical Tantras which traces back to 1200 years ago, may lead to a
mistake.
Ishbaljor’s concept of bacteria duplicates that of some Noble Prize laureates. At the
beginning of the 20 century, an Australian scholar Barry J. Marshall and J. Robin
Warren won the Noble Prize for their discovery of the “bacterium Helicobacter pylori
and its role in gastritis and peptic ulcer disease” in 2005. Also a German medical
scientist Harald zur Hausen was awarded the Noble Prize for the discovery of “the
human papilloma virus which plays an important role in the cause of cervical cancer”.
Most attempts of scientific revolution end with failure. Very few of them create
paradigms. In case of a successful new paradigm, the world science undergoes a broad
range of changes. So the discoveries by Barry J. Marshall, J. Robin Warren and Harald
zur Hausen have completely changed the understanding of the causes of gastritis and
peptic ulcer diseases as well as cervical diseases and related treatment methods.
During my research, I was proud of Ishbaljor who discovered Helicobacter pylori,
papilloma virus in the 18th century. Unfortunately, his descendents could not explore
and learn it. However, it is worth to mention here that some traditional methods to treat
the stomach bacteria were practiced in the history of Traditional Mongolian medicine.
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