AIAPGET Unani key terms

The body's innate self-regulating power that maintains health and drives recovery from disease; Unani physicians assess its strength before prescribing treatment, since therapy aims to support rather than replace it.

A person's individual temperament arising from the balance of the four humours and qualities; it determines susceptibility to disease and guides drug selection, diet, and lifestyle advice in Unani practice.

The four humours - dam (blood), balgham (phlegm), safra (yellow bile), and sauda (black bile) - whose proportions and quality determine health; their equilibrium is the central concept of Unani pathology.

The four primary elements - fire, air, water, and earth - each paired with two qualities; they are the theoretical building blocks from which humours and body tissues are constituted in Unani philosophy.

The four primary qualities - hot, cold, moist, and dry - used to classify drugs, foods, diseases, and temperaments; each substance is graded by the intensity of its dominant quality.

Abnormal temperament, either simple (a single quality in excess) or compound (two qualities combined); it is the basic Unani diagnostic category for functional disturbance before structural change appears.

Treatment by opposites: a hot disease is managed with cold drugs, dryness with moisture, and so on. It is the fundamental therapeutic principle governing drug and diet selection in Unani medicine.

Management through regimen and lifestyle - diet, sleep, exercise, massage, bathing, and environment - used before or alongside drugs; it reflects the preventive and restorative emphasis of Unani practice.

The six essentials of health: air, food and drink, bodily movement and rest, psychic movement and rest, sleep and wakefulness, and retention and evacuation. Their balance preserves health and their disturbance causes disease.

The governing or regulating faculty of the body that coordinates nutrition, growth, and defence; classical texts describe it as the physician within, working through the natural faculties to restore equilibrium.

The seven basic components of the human body: elements, temperaments, humours, organs, spirits (arwah), faculties (quwa), and functions (af'al). Examiners frequently test this classification as a whole.

A subtle vaporous substance held to be the vehicle of vital faculty, carried through the body by the vessels and responsible for life and movement; its concept underlies Unani physiology of pulse and respiration.

The faculties of the body - natural (tabaiyya), vital (haywaniya), and psychic (nafsaniya) - each with subordinate powers such as nutrition, growth, reproduction, and sensation; their impairment underlies functional disease.

Organs, classified as simple (mufrad) or compound (murakkab) and as principal or subordinate; the principal organs - brain, heart, liver, and testes/ovaries - are regarded as sources of the faculties.

Pulse examination, assessed for rate, rhythm, volume, character, and consistency; classical Unani texts describe many pulse types and correlate them with temperament and humoural states.

Diagnostic inference from signs and symptoms, including pulse, urine, stool, tongue, and complexion; it is the reasoning step that links observed indicators to a humoural diagnosis and treatment plan.

Diagnosis in Unani practice, established through history, pulse, urine and stool examination, and assessment of temperament; it identifies the affected humour and the nature of the deviation.

The sanguine temperament, dominated by blood and the hot-moist qualities; such individuals are described as robust, ruddy, sociable, and prone to conditions of plethora and inflammation.

The bilious temperament, dominated by yellow bile and hot-dry qualities; characterised by a lean build, sharp temper, and susceptibility to heat, thirst, and inflammatory or hepatic complaints.

The phlegmatic temperament, dominated by phlegm and cold-moist qualities; associated with a soft build, slow disposition, and tendency to colds, oedema, and sluggish digestion.

The melancholic temperament, dominated by black bile and cold-dry qualities; linked with a lean, dark-complexioned build, introspection, and vulnerability to chronic, wasting, or mood-related disorders.

Venous section or bloodletting performed to evacuate excess humour, especially in plethora and inflammatory states; site selection follows the affected organ and the humour judged to be dominant.

Cupping therapy, either dry or with scarification, used to divert and evacuate humour from a region; it is one of the principal methods of evacuation in Unani regimenal treatment.

Evacuation of morbid matter by any route - bloodletting, purgation, emesis, diuresis, diaphoresis, or cupping; it is applied when the humoural excess is established and the patient is strong enough.

A drug that ripens or concocts raw morbid humour, preparing it for evacuation; it is given before a purgative so that the matter becomes amenable to expulsion rather than being driven deeper.

A purgative drug that expels morbid matter from the intestines and, by extension, from the body; it is prescribed after concoction and with attention to the patient's strength and temperament.

Therapeutic emesis, induced to evacuate humour from the stomach and upper body; classical texts specify indications, timing, and contraindications, including weakness and pregnancy.

The graded potency scale of a drug, usually four degrees, expressing how strongly its quality acts on the body; prescribing depends on matching the grade to the patient's temperament and disease intensity.

A single-ingredient drug, described in materia medica by temperament, grade, actions, dosage, and substitutes; knowledge of mufradat underpins the compounding of all Unani formulations.

A compound formulation made from several ingredients according to classical recipes; forms include majun, jawarish, safoof, habb, sharbat, and tiryaq, each with defined preparation and dosage.

A semi-solid confection of drugs combined with honey, sugar, or syrup; used for tonic, rejuvenating, or chronic conditions, with examples including Majun Falasfa and Majun Azaraqi.

A digestive electuary of powdered drugs with sugar or honey, traditionally used to strengthen the stomach and liver and to correct digestion; named formulations include Jawarish Jalinus and Jawarish Zarooni.

A confection prepared with a decoction or infusion of drugs combined with sugar and often gold or silver leaf; it is used as a cardiac, cerebral, or tonic formulation in Unani pharmacy.

A finely powdered compound formulation, taken with water, honey, or another vehicle; it is suited to drugs that lose activity on heating and allows flexible dosing.

A pill or small globule made by kneading powdered drugs with a suitable vehicle such as mucilage or honey; it is used for potent drugs given in small, measured doses.

An elaborate classical antidotal confection containing many ingredients, historically used against poisons and venomous bites and as a general strengthener; its preparation and uses are frequently examined.

Ambient air, regarded as the first of the six essentials of health; its quality, temperature, humidity, and purity are held to influence temperament and the production of humours directly.

The temperament of a drug - its dominant quality and the degree in which it acts - which must be matched against the patient's temperament and the humoural diagnosis before prescribing.

The ideal balanced temperament against which individual deviations are judged; no person is perfectly balanced, so treatment aims to restore each individual's own optimal state rather than an absolute norm.