Cancer in Traditional and Islamic Medicine of Iran: Prevention and Treatment

Nowadays, cancer disease is known as one of the most important causes of morbidity andmortality in the world. This disease wasthe interest of many physicians and philosophers ofevery age, and hence Hippocrates (in the 5th century BC) called the disease as cancer andcarcinoma. Iranian philosophers put the â€oeSaratanâ€word upon it, which means crab in theArabic language. In Iranian traditional medicine, cancer has been categorized under swellings and classified as solid tumor and cold swelling , and some therapies havebeen prescribed for it. Some of these therapies have been examined in research topics ofmodern medicine. Since, the traditional medicine approach is a holistic and humorism, itmainly pays attention to treating the patient and not curing the disease. From the perspectiveof traditional medicine, the nature and body of human is composed of four humors: Phlegmor Balgham, Blood or Dam, Yellow bile or Safra and Black bile or Sauda . The foundation ofIranian traditional medicine system was based on the balancing of humors in the humanbody. The moderation in these four humors in the human body guarantees the human health,and, in contrast, lack of balance in one or several of them or dominance of one humors overothers cause several different diseases and suffering in human body. Although the cause ofcancer and even many other diseases are unknown in modern medicine, in Iranian traditionalmedicine, the cause of cancer is attributed to domination of sauda humor and its attendanthumors, which cause various types of cancers based on position and the involved organ. Byidentifying the main cause of this disease, some measures can be easily taken to control andprevent the causative agents, which include dietary, environmental and psychologicalfactors, of this disease in body. In this article, the most important causes of saudapredominance in human body and cleansing body of this humors will be studied.K