by Upatissa Hulugalle
Recently a very well written article appeared in the Sunday Times - a "Taste our own medicine". This re-minded me of a book written by an English-man "The Water of Life" in 1944 and a book written by an American lady 'Your Own Perfect Medicine' in 1994.

This Englishman had been suffering from tuberculosis and after two years of treatment lost faith in doctors as he was not cured. He recalled a text in the Bible in Proverbs 5 "Drink waters out of thine own cistern", a text which reminded him of a father who gave his daughter her own urine and cured her of diphtheria.

Fortified by his faith, in what he thought to be the correct interpre-tation of the text, he fasted for forty-five days on nothing but urine and tap water - despite the doctor's assertion that eleven days is the limit which a human being could go! He also rubbed urine into his body - a very important factor in the cure.

Finally he broke his fast on raw beef and though it gave him no discomfort beyond a ravenous hunger he ate cautiously for a time and continued to drink his own urine, noticing that it changes in tem-perature, quantity and taste, depending almost entirely on what he ate or drank and on the amount of exercise he took.

To quote him as to the outcome "At the end of this treatment I felt and was 'an entirely new man'. I weighed 140 pounds, was full of vim, looked about eleven years younger than I actually was and had a skin like a young girl's. I was thirty-six at that time and now am sixty. Yet by dint of drinking every drop of water I pass, living on a well balanced diet and never eating more food per diem than what the body requires, I look and feel much younger than my age and keep free from those major and minor ailments to which the body is said to be heir."

Sharing
"Having now related the essential details of my self-cure and all that contributed to its continuance, I will merely add that in 1918, being convinced that knowledge must not be selfishly 'hidden under a bushel' but be shared with one's fellows, I began to advice and supervise the fasting of others on the same lines."

His book first published in 1944 was the catalyst which made of urine therapy accepted in India. The one time Prime Minister Moraji Desai promoted it's use by declaring that he drank a glass of his own urine on a regular basis. India had used it thousands of years earlier and urine therapy is found in all volumes of Ayurveda.

A Dutchman writing a book on urine therapy visited Moraji and writes "When I visited him in the spring of 1994, Moraji was ninety-nine years old and still in good health. He drank a glass of his urine every day and massaged and washed himself with it. His skin still was remarkably radiant and soft."

The Water of Life Foundation in India has published a book which states in one of the volumes of Ayurveda viz. Bhavprakasha, urine is termed as 'Visaghana' killer of all poisons and 'Rasa-yana' which can re-juvenate old persons and 'Raktapama-haram' which purifies blood and cures all skin diseases. Reference to urine therapy is found in all the volumes of Ayurveda viz, Shusrut, Harit, Bhavprakash and many more volumes.

Urine therapy re-ferred to in ancient aayurveda has over 30,000 lines on the internet and is a free cure for nearly all ills and as there is no money involved, there are no disputes. In the Sunday Times article there is a paragraph highlighted in green 'An attempt to steal our wealth' - Victor Hettigoda is quoted to say that the government must stop 'the business of foreig-ners patenting our plants'.

Unfortunately he has not grasped the law, that no one can patent plants which have been in existence or products from such plants. That the plants which are the backbone of our economy. Like tea and rubber have been introduced from other parts of the world.

Incorrect
All the plants referred to in the Sunday Times article, Kothalahimbutu, weniwalgata and bebila, nutmeg, kaluduru and all the others referred in a highlighted area as patented is incorrect. In addition nearly all these plants are not endemic to Sri Lanka, which means it is found in other countries and some have introduced from other countries.

We import the major part of our ayurveda plants and ingredients in our ayurvedic medicine from India and kotha-lahimbutu is available in vast quantities in India. When customs officials cracked down on a BOI company from exporting 4114 kilos of kotha-lahimbutu and released to the press that they were trying to smuggle it, it was pure and simple brinksman-ship and not factual.

This company was asked to get clearance from the Commissioner of Ayurveda by the customs which they had got as in four shipments previously. There was no question of smuggling and the customs realizing their mistake has now said that permission has to be got from the Conservator of Forests and not the Com-missioner of Ayurveda as it may have come from the forest, which is simple harassment as this is available freely in Colombo.

The BOI company was sending this woodstock with per-mission from the Commissioner of Ayurveda for experi-menting purposes in laborataries in Japan till such time as they get their laboratary established in Sri Lanka. This BOI company is interested in growing all possible ayurvedic plants which can be grown in Sri Lanka using outgrowers.

Nursery plants
They have already established a nursery for plants to produce the seed stock or the plants by tissue culture. They will be able to give the forest department thousands of Kothala-himbutu plants to be grown in the forests if the department can organize the growing which apparently they are not interested. This plant is available to the world including Sri Lanka from India and if the Japanese want it, Sri Lanka cannot prevent them getting it.

If we are interested in creating jobs and income we have to develop high class medicines, patent it here and sell it to the world and grow the raw materials required. We cannot oppose foreigners and beat them. We have to join them for our benefit.

The BOI company in question is trying and has the capital to promote our farmers to grow ayurveda plants and produce the internationally accepted medicines here. Government policy has been to invite foreign capital to set up agri-business to create jobs and income for Sri Lanka.

To produce world accepted drugs one has to have highly sophisti-cated laboratory facilities and highly motivated qualified scientists and the BOI company has set their goals to meet these needs and attract Sri Lankans from abroad and to use scientists here by providing facilities. A local scientist was offered a trip to meet his counterparts working in this field in Japan, but his application to go and meet highly qualified research profesors was turned down by a weak head of his department. the BOI investor may lose interest in the project.

It is by research that medical drugs are produced. An example is a drug based on urokinase, an ingredient of human urine, called 'miracle blood clot dissolver'. This was produced in a laboratary out of urine. this no doubt shows the importance of sophisti-cated laboratory facilities.

The bureaucrats who get their salaries whatever they do, are not interested in the country's development and find rationale to prevent action by the private sector wherever possible, unless otherwise directed by superiors. Fortunately the president under-stands the situation and if appealed to, will rectify the short-comings.

We should try to create Sri Lanka to be a medicinal garden of Asia and produce pharmaceuticals for the world instead of just blocking the vast potential. However if we are to be guided by myopic government officials, we can forget about increasing em-ployment and the use of foreign capital for advancement and set our sights much lower.

We can be satisfied by 'tasting our own medicine' and the Amereican lady, who could not be cured by man-made medicines found that nature has provided a safe painless solution to even to seemingly incurable diseases. By drinking her urine, she put an end to a thirty years of suffering and wrote a well researched 200 page book 'Your Own Perfect Medicine' in 1994.

Urine therapy is a cure for all ills, as the body produces the necessary antibodies, hormones and enzymes to fight one's own illness. In my next article I will elaborate on urine therapy which I have researched and find it to be a result oriented therapy. It has no cost, there is no money for doctors or pharmaceutical companies and no chance of unpleasant bureaucratic interference.