Role of homoeopathy of AYUSH in tuberculosis

The article deals with an age-old problem called Tuberculosis. In India, the condition is known as ‘Kshaya’ as the body gets wasted. Similarly, the programmatic portal to deal with the disease is called ‘Nikshaya portal’. The disease is also associated with the partition of India. It is believed that if the TB condition of Jinnah was known to the congress leaders, they would have delayed the formation of partition and thus avoiding the horrors of partition. Raj Kapoor’s movie ‘Aah’ showed him dying from TB as the world did not have any curative method by the time of release of the movie. One of the exponent of homoeopathy, Dr. E. A. Farrington who introduced the concept of comparative materia medica lost his life to TB at the age of 38 years. In 1994, the lead author had a young girl suffering from cough and the cough did not subside with the Homoeopathic medicines. Eventually, the case was referred and it turned out to be a case of pulmonary TB. Thus, the article sees the role of homoeopathy through the eyes of medical pluralism where homoeopathy has a specific and critical role in the entire gamut of TB. It suggests a treatment protocol as a complement to the existing therapeutics. It builds on the property of homoeopathy as essential medicine (EM) where it is cost effective, therapeutically effective while having no side effects. Using these three properties, mass coverage can be done through inclusion of Homoeopathy. The approach will surely lessen the TB burden of the nation.