Types of digestion from the perspective of Persian medicine

Abstract

Introduction: According to the Basic principles of Persian medicine, there are 4 digestions in the human body, which are gastric, liver, vascular and organ digestion, and each of these digestions plays an important role in the health of the body, soul and strength of the body. The importance of digestion in the body is that it makes the food eaten into a part of the body.

Materials and Methods: This study is a library review that has been conducted using 40 authoritative scientific books and articles in the field of Persian Medicine as well as through search engines SID, Magiran, PubMed, and Google Scholar. Keywords that were searched: Persian medicine, four digestions, gastric digestion, liver digestion, vascular digestion and organ digestion. In this research, taking notes was performed by studying the mentioned sources about four digestions (gastric, liver, vascular and organ digestions) from the perspective of Persian medicine, and the results are presented in this article after classifying and summarizing the contents.

Results: According to the schools of Persian medicine, food is eaten until it becomes part of all organs of the body, has transformed (quantitative and qualitative changes) in four parts of the body, each of these four parts is called a type of digestion. These four parts are the gastric (Meadi), liver (Kabedi), vascular (Oroghi) and organs (Ozvi); respectively, and therefore they are called the first digestion (gastric), the second digestion (liver), the third digestion (vascular) and the fourth digestion (organ). In each digestion, a series of useful and waste (unuseful) materials are produced, which are separated from each other. The useful material is preserved in the body for nutrition, The waste material is excreted from the body.I through feces in first digestion, through urine in the second digestion and the third and fourth digestion, are through various methods including sweat, pus.

Conclusion: Persian medicine is one of the holistic medical schools which have a special perspective on digestion. Since digestion plays a very important role in the health of the body, so Persian medicine’s scientists have fully addressed both the role of nutrition in health and the factors affecting digestion. Therefore, the health of the digestive faculty is one of the basic necessities and principles of the health of the whole body.