Contacts between India and Arabs of Baghdad
• Between 750 and 1258, the Abbasid caliphate of Baghdad managed a vast empire that spread between Indus and Spain. Greek and Indian cultures met in the famous "House of Wisdom" (Bait al-hikma) of Baghdad.
• In the 8th century, Indian physician Manikya was invited to the court of Haroun al-Rashid for translating Sushruta-Samhita in Arabic.
• In the 10th century, a Persian pharmacist, Abu Mansur Muwaffaq, wrote the Kitab'I Abniya an Haq'iq'l Adwiya (book of Fundamentals and Real Properties of Cures) on the basis of Greek and Indian sources.
Similarities between Hippocratic dietetics and Ayurvedic dietetics
• Human body is a microcosm of the universe. In the Hippocratic medicine, body is made of water, air, earth and fire. In the Ayurvedic medicine, body is made of water, air, earth, fire and vacuum.
• In the works of Hippocrates and in Ayurveda, seasons, habitat, type of life, the food that one eats favour either health or disease.
• In both the dietetics, digestion is explained as cooking of food with the help of body-fire.
• In both medicines, dietetic is an essential element for conserving health or for healing from diseases.
• In Hippocratic medicine, there are 4 basic temperaments: bilious (bile), sanguineous (blood), phlegmatic or lymphatic (phlegm) and atrabiliary (black bile). In Ayurvedic medicine, there are 3 basic temperaments: Vata (air), Pitta (bile) and Kapha (phlegm).
• In both dietetics, one must eat foodstuffs that are adapted to one's temperament or that will re-establish the balance that had been disturbed.
• In both the dietetics, there are complex categories concerning the nature of food-items.
• In both dietetics, there is mistrust for raw food-items.
• Ayurvedic medicine survived the arrival of western scientific medicine that swept away Hippocratic medicine. But in spite of their cultural differences, both these medicines can be considered as having very close basic principals.