- Etiological theory employing the explanatory principle of deviation
from the proper proportions of the doÓsas. - Therapeutic measures including pharmaceuticals that act to restore
the balance of the doÓsasaccording to the patient’s constitutional type
and environmental circumstances.
For the maintenance of health, it is necessary that a perfect equilib-
rium be established with regard to the various forces acting and
counteracting on the body. If there is an excessive deficiency any-
where, it has got to be neutralized.... Marshy lands are by nature
dominated by the qualities of unctuousness [‘oiliness,’ ‘slipperiness’]
and heaviness. Individuals residing in such places should naturally be
required to become used to taking meat of animals of arid climate,
honey, etc., which are dominated by qualities like roughness and
lightness in contradistinction with those of the unctuousness and
heaviness which dominate the climate of other lands. Similarly, one
should be required to follow a regular regimen on the above lines in
order to counteract the imbalancing forces of these places. The same
principle also holds good with regard to the various diseases. For ex-
ample, if a disease has occurred due to the vitiation [impairment] of
v ̄ata, then the diet, drugs and regimen are to be habituated in such a
manner that they counteract the effect of the former.
AD 1:6.50
Åyurvedic physician Vasant Lad explains that disease-process is caused
by doÓsasimbalanced by factors such as unsuitable diet, or smoking,
which weaken tissues in specific locations of the body where disease may
then take hold. Treatment does not focus on eradication of external path-
ogenic factors, but rather on restoring the balance of conditions and
forces within the affected tissues and system, the system surrounding it,
and the whole organism.^21 Åyurveda’s theory of pathogenesis implies that
a determinant of health is equilibrium of the functions that support un-
damaged tissues and systems, in order to avoid tendencies to malfunction
when pathogens are inevitably encountered.
Contemporary scientific medicine makes particular use of chemical
analysis, and here the concept of equilibrium concerns the balance of
chemical substances and processes within an organism. Physiological
functions depend on chemical factors and interactions whose equilibrium
can be evaluated quantitatively. Chemical levels in the body can be ana-
lyzed by laboratory procedures and judged in terms of a standard range,
with readings falling outside the normal range indicative of particular
meanings of health in ̄ayurveda 53