Traditional Physician D. D. Hettiarachchci last Tuesday took part in a discussion with several university professors of diverse fields including micro biology, education and management. Being among the first to research into Covid-19 treatments from the Deshiya Chikitsa/Sri Lankan Ayurveda lens he explained that modern man’s penchant for giving fancy names for emerging viruses could be the reason why the world is distanced from finding the needed medical solutions especially from non- Western knowledge.
“We have had in recent times several viruses that attack the lungs and cause serious complications. Now we have a lung affecting immunity impairing illness, given the name of Covid-19 which becomes fatal only if the overall health condition of the body is weakened by other ailments,” Hettiarachchi said.
Changing avatar
“The changing avatar of viruses is nothing new in the history of man. In Sri Lanka’s history and in the history of the world, this is not the first time humanity faced pandemics of this nature.”
“ There is enough information in our ancient Ola leaf manuscripts about the core of lung impacting viruses that take on different forms, change, mutate and become the ‘variants,’. However, what we do not understand is that we give fancy names for the mutations and then run around looking for ‘cures’ for that particular ‘name.’
We christened the current pandemic when it first emerged last year Covid-19 and now we are calling the latest emerging variant of it as Delta,” Hettiarachchi said.
He was speaking at an event organised by the Light of Asia Foundation headed by Naveen Gunaratne in collaboration with Life TV and likeminded persons, initiated by management specialist Buddhima Mendis, to promote traditional healers of Sri Lanka and to minimise the gap between the educationists/academics of the university system and those representing traditional knowledge. An association of traditional healers was established during the event.
Hettiarachchi, who had created the first set of treatments for Covid-19 (based on the symptoms – aiming at removing the infections that attack the lungs- and not getting distracted or overawed by the name given to the disease), explained how he had sent the medications to Italy between last March and May.
Facilitated by several well-wishers and assisted by his son who was in that country, his medicines had reached not only Sri Lankans but many Italians as well.
Asked if he had submitted his medications to the local authorities for the related testing he said that he had not.
Herbs and leaves
“When I engaged in discussions with some officials concerned all I found was that everyone wanted to know what the herbs and leaves I have used (Wattoruwa). The hair in my head had not turned grey these past 78 years for nothing. For sixty years I have been practising the traditional medicine system of our ancestors. I have had enough experience over the past decades of ‘medical experts’ wanting to work with me or ‘test’ my medications just to be able to steal my cures.
One such professor of Western medicine, a very famous personality was the only honest person who actually said the truth – that he wanted a specific cure I administer for a specific ailment. He said this during a so called research that he began with me some time back which ended upon my declining to give him the entire list of ingredients and methods that he wanted.”
During the discussion he ensued with the academics, this aspect was highlighted as something to be concerned about when taking Lankan traditional medicine to the world so that we are mindful of how we lost the patents to herbs such as Kothalahimbutu and take steps to prevent such calamities.
Physician Hettiarachchi said that some of the simplest forms of Sri Lankan traditional methods could be used for this current pandemic, such as vapour inhalation and the purification of the air by burning selected herbs/leaves on coconut shells.
He said that these could be a game changer in the pandemic battle if used regularly in homes, public institutions and hospitals so that the germs hovering in the air that we are trying to ward off with masks and shields gets destroyed.
“Using the knowledge of our ancestors as embedded in our Ola Leaf manuscripts, I have studied the nature of variants of this type of lung attacking viruses that have plagued the world throughout the ages in different forms – in how it spreads within the body creating different complications. Using this traditional knowledge I have prepared several treatments including for the set of symptoms as seen in the latest variant.”
“Having not been given any recognition or opportunity to serve this country during this pandemic I am not coming in front of the media or advertise my medications. I have prepared these medications because that is my duty as a physician and for anyone who comes seeking them I will provide it.
As far as I know it serves almost as an equivalent of a vaccine because once it is consumed there is no need for any other medication and there is no threat of the body succumbing to this same type of virus again. If there is a result different to this, I study it and analyse because the human condition is complex. We know that this Western science based vaccine is also not promising to eradicate the disease.”
Alien science
Hettiarachchi, although from a family whose uncle practised traditional medicine, had only fully learnt it when he joined the Matara Hithattiye Gunaratne Mudalinda Pirivena which had been the foremost place imparting knowledge of Deshiya Chikitsa or Deshiya Wedakama (Sinhala/Hela Wedakama).
He reminds of the need to take steps to safeguard whatever remaining places of this nature so that traditional medical knowledge does not remain an alien science to its own people as evident in this time of a deadly pandemic when we are acting as helpless as the West without recognising that we are kicking away the solution owing to us being ignorant of it.
He said that within this medical tradition, there are cures for ailments that the Western science cannot cure – such as HIV and Dengue.
“I have developed the cures and treated persons. We do not do this to get famous so we do not expect the patients to revert to us. But what I have learnt is that this is an ungrateful world where people I have saved from death’s door never come to tell me how they are and later when I run into them hale and hearty they casually say that it’s my medicine that saved them.
Hence the impossible that I have done in terms of treatments the world in general will never know but my duty is to persist until I die to do what a traditional physician should,” physician Hettiarachchi said.