Abstract

CANCER: WHAT AYURVEDA THINKS

Dr. Bhushan Kawle* and Dr. Bharat Kadlaskar

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Abstract

Ayurveda, the oldest Indian indigenous medicine system of plant drugs is known from very early times for preventing or suppressing various diseases using natural drugs. Cancer is one of the most dreaded diseases of the 20th century and spreading further with continuance and increasing incidence in 21st century. In the United States, as the leading cause of death, it accounts for 25% of all the deaths in humans presently. It is considered as an adversary of modernization and advanced pattern of socio-cultural life dominated by Western medicine. The science of Ayurveda is supposed to add a step on to the curative aspects of cancers that have resemblance with clinical entities of arbuda and granthi mentioned in Sushrutha samhita. Charaka and Sushruta samhitas, two well-known Ayurvedic classics, describe cancer as inflammatory or non-inflammatory swelling and mention them as either Granthi (minor neoplasm) or Arbuda (major neoplasm).

Keywords: Cancer, Arbuda, Granthi.