Well I fir- I first came to Oxford in fact to study, uh, Ayuravedic Medicine.
Which may seem a bit strange that_ to, to, to come to the centre of learning to study something that’s so weird.
Anyway I, I better explain what Ayuravedic Medicine is.
Ayuravada literally means the science of longevity.
By medical science, the science that keeps people alive for as long as possible.
And it’s actually, um, an eastern system of medicine from India.
Although it’s, it's practised in some form or other all over.
Uh, I think even in in China and Japan people, study some form of it.
But certainly in Tibet and South India and stuff.
It’s what, is called, uh, I supposed a complementary medical system now.
Uh, it’s something that, most medicine people use the western system obviously, cause it’s so successful and it’s so good at what it does.
But there are certain areas of, even high-tech medicine, that it’s, it’s maybe not so good dealing with maybe allergies or something like that.
And over the last, maybe, twenty years or something people have started looking at older systems of medicine, and healing, and ideas and thinking, maybe there’s something still to be found there.
And in fact they, they’ve found a lot of, new drugs and new techniques, that have been, sort of modernised, and used in Western medicine.
So Ayuravedic, it might surprise you, is a very, very old system.
I mean it’s about, oh, it’s maybe three, three or four thousand years old.
They’ve been practising it in some form or other.
Obviously it’s developed.
And it’s mainly based around the idea that what makes you ill is, is probably what you eat.
It’s eating the_ either eating maybe not enough or too much.
But also the type of things that you eat.
So where you live, maybe you should, think about eating things that are appropriate to where you are, or to your temperament, or whatever.
So that’s it’s, it’s core.
And from that the developed quite, uh, quite a complicated system, that is main_ still mainly practised in India but, in America and, in, in Britain over the last few years people have, um, the practitioners from those countries have been coming here and practising it.
So that’s, that’s Ayuraveda.
I’ve been_ i’m not a practitioner of Ayuraveda.
I’ve been interested in, kind of Eastern philosophy.
So I studied the kind of history of it.
And,and the basic core philosophical ideas.
And I actually wrote a little kind of introduction to it.
But it’s something that is, is, you know, I mean it’s true isn’t it.
That what you eat does make you, is gonna make you ill, or is gonna make you better.
So basically it’s a sensible system.
It’s not, it’s not crazy or anything.
In fact to practice Ayuraveda the_ you have to go through a, a training that is at least as long as, as any physician.
It can be at least seven years before you’re, you’re really qualified to be let loose on a_ on someone with a with an illness.
So it it’s something that’s increasing in popularity.
Along with other sort of forms of alternative medicine.
N, n, n, like acupuncture or whatever_ in fact acupuncture is, is derived from_ some of the principles acupuncture are derived from Ayuravedic medicine.
Uh, and some of the herbs used in in Chinese medicine, actually come from India.
And from the Chinese system.
So these ideas have been around a long time.
And they’re being revived now.
Uh, and it’s, it’s one thing that you might hear about.
So that’s, that’s Ayuravedic Medicine medicine.