A Review of the Indices of Mizaj-e-Meda (Temperament of Stomach) identification in Persian Medicine

Digestive diseases are one of the problems of the health system in the world. From the perspective of Persian medicine, the stomach begins the second stage of digestion and its function plays an important role in human health or illness. The written sources of Persian medicine have been widely used to determine the health of the stomach. The purpose of this study is to summarize indices of Mizaj-e-Meda (Temperament of Stomach) identification to help better diagnose the status of health or illness of stomach.
In this review article, 11 valid Iranian medicine sources and scientific databases of Scopus, PubMed, Science Direct, Google Scholar, Elsevier, and web of science as well as Persian indices of SID, Iran Doc, Magiran were searched and the existing views were summarized.
FINDINGS: In the sources of Persian medicine, the indices of different types of Mizaj (temperament) and Su-e-mizaj (abnormal temperament) have been proposed. Seventeen articles on the subject of gastric diseases in Persian medicine were found; one case merely examined gastric symptoms, while others only slightly referred to the indices. Some of the most important indices considered in these sources for identifying the type of Mizaj-e-Meda were the way of digestion, desire for food according to the type of Mizaj (temperament), thirst, appetite, burrow, moisture and taste of the mouth, tongue and mouth condition, flatulence, quality of waste matter, speed of food passage, sour stomach, burning stomach, stomach ache and stomach malmas (touch).
CONCLUTIONS: Persian medicine sources have fully cited gastric indices, which can be used for a more effective diagnose and treatment and even prevention of gastric diseases, and can also be used for designing and validating standard scales for Mizaj-e-Meda (Temperament of Stomach) identification.