MADURAI
Lamenting the fact that the Central and State governments were spending huge amounts from their exchequer only on modern medicines, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court observed that there was a need to patronise indigenous system of medicine after a Madurai-based Siddha doctor’s herbal concoction was found to have an anti-viral effect.
Taking into account the fact that the Siddha doctor’s medical preparation and the documents pertaining to it were sent to the Central Council for Research in Ayurveda and Siddha (CCRAS) by the State government, a Division Bench of Justices P.N. Prakash and B. Pugalendhi directed the CCRAS to test the preparation and file a report by August 3.
An expert committee of the Directorate of Indian Medicine and Homeopathy, Chennai, tested ‘IMPRO’, the herbal concoction prepared by S. Subramanian and submitted that the preparation had an anti-viral effect. Mr. Subramanian, previously the Medical Officer of the Siddha dispensary at the High Court Bench, had sought a direction to the Centre to test and see if his herbal concoction, a mixture of 66 herbs, could be used as a cure for COVID-19.
The court observed that every country had its own indigenous medicines and with those medicines the ancestors had led healthy lives. Everyone at some point of time had experienced the benefits of indigenous medicines. ‘Siddha’ was one such system of medicine that boosted immunity.
However, the present day generation was slowly switching to fast food and readymade meals and grandmother’s treatment or medicine was slowly vanishing, the court observed. The judges said the Indian system of food itself provided sufficient immunity while pointing to the low COVID-19 death rate in India when compared to other countries.
Tamil Nadu had effectively handled dengue fever by promoting nilavembu kudineer and now kabasura kudineer was being promoted as an effective immune booster which was given to people as a preventive medicine and convalescent medicine to COVID-19 patients, the court said.
But only during the pandemic situation, importance was given to such indigenous medicine as it was cost-effective compared to modern medicine. What was required was more patronage to Siddha medicine for its research and development, so that it would be beneficial not only to the people here, but the entire mankind, the court said.
