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Ulcerative colitis and dysentery

  • Alakananda Ma
    Alakananda Ma

    Alakananda is a co-founder, spiritual mother, teacher, Ayurvedic practitioner, flower essence maker and storyteller.

    Alakananda is an accomplished writer with many published articles and is highly respected and well known in the Ayurveda community as a renowned senior Ayurveda practitioner, both nationally and internationally. She is a member of the board of directors of NAMA (National Ayurvedic Medical Association).

    She has been a keynote presenter and popular speaker both at NAMA conferences and at the Swastha International Ayurvedic conference in London.

  • 9:42 reading time (ish)
  • Ayurvedic Herbal Medicine Digestion & Nutrition Mobility & Fitness

Written by Alakananda Ma

“The vayu in the organism of a person addicted to the use of unwholesome food is deranged and aggravated. It carries down the accumulation of mucus into the lower part of the body, where, mixed with stools, it is constantly passed with tenesmus. The disease is called pravahika (dysentery).”

In this article we will consider dysentery, known as pravahika, from the standpoint of modern Western epidemiology. In India, the main causes of pravahika would be amoebic dysentery and bacillary dysentery. Currently in the West, a majority of dysenteric illnesses relate to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD): Crohn disease, ulcerative colitis, and microscopic colitis.

Sushrut includes pravahika or dysentery in the chapter on atisar, diarrhoea. Madhavacharya follows Sushrut in this. Vagbhat and Charak mention pravahika in their sections on treatment of vata atisar. But specifically, dysentery involves the anubhandan or conjunction of kapha and vata atisar. “Vata gets increased and associating with kapha produces the disease called pravahika” (2).

Alakananda Ma

Alakananda is a co-founder, spiritual mother, teacher, Ayurvedic practitioner, flower essence maker and storyteller. Alakananda is an accomplished writer with many published articles and is highly... Read more

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