Unani - Humoral Foundations and Clinical Reasoning
The Unani domain of AIAPGET examines the Greco-Arabic medical system as transmitted through Ibn Sina's Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, Razi's Kitab al-Hawi and later Indian Unani texts. Questions span Kulliyat-e-Unani (basic principles), Ilmul Advia (materia medica), Ilmul Saidla (pharmacy), Moalajat (medicine) and the clinical specialties. The exam rewards precise use of Unani terminology and the ability to connect theory to bedside signs.
Core rules and concepts
- Arkan (elements): fire, air, water and earth. Their qualities-hot, cold, moist, dry-combine to form mizaj.
- Mizaj (temperament): the balanced state is mizaj-e-mutadil; individual temperament varies by age, sex, season and geography.
- Akhlat (humours): dam (hot-moist), balgham (cold-moist), safra (hot-dry) and sauda (cold-dry). Each has a normal fraction that supports physiology; disease arises from imbalance or corruption.
- Quwa (powers): natural, vital and psychic powers govern nutrition, circulation and sensation.
- Asbab-e-Sitta Zarooriya: air, food and drink, movement and rest, sleep and wakefulness, evacuation and retention, and mental states.
Worked example
A patient reports bitter taste, yellow discoloration of the sclera, thirst, hot dry skin and irritability. The reasoning is: the yellow colour and bitterness point to safra; heat and dryness confirm the hot-dry quality; the opposite cold-moist temperament is balgham. Treatment follows ilaj bil-zid (treatment by contraries): cooling and moistening regimens, with drugs of cold-moist temperament. The mistake would be to label the case sauda merely because dryness is present; sauda is cold-dry and shows dark, melancholic features.
Traps that cost marks
- Memorising the humours without their paired qualities; exam options deliberately swap hot-dry and cold-dry.
- Treating every balgham sign as disease; normal balgham is not pathological.
- Confusing drug temperament with patient temperament; both are described as hot/cold/dry/moist, but the drug is chosen to oppose the patient's excess.
- Omitting one of the Asbab-e-Sitta Zarooriya in list questions.
- Applying modern pathology labels without linking them to mizaj and akhlat.