Tongue Reflects Health Status: A Review on Manifestations of Tongue Detected in Different Diseases from the Viewpoint of Persian Medicine

The tongue is a meaty organ that receives vessels and nerves much more than primarily expected. Since the texture of the tongue is porous and it is exposed to high amount of vapor coming from lower organs, especially stomach, changes in body temperament and appearing disorders in other organs can affect the tongue easily. So its color is one of the important signs that help the physician's approach, meantime, the effect of brain, stomach, and liver disorders on this organ are stronger. The aim of this study was a review on Persian Medicine (PM) manuscripts to find out the way Persian sage physicians approached to tongue diseases, categorized it and treated it.

The most valuable textbooks of PM such as Exir-e-Azam, Tebe Akbari, Kholasatal tajareb were studied. We reviewed and analyzed the disease under the title of "tongue" and studied different effects of diseases on the tongue.

The most important organs reflect their diseases on tongue are brain, stomach and liver. Any significant injury in these organs can change the color, taste, form and the moisture on the tongue. For instance, color of the tongue in brain diseases changes to white in dementia, yellow and black in qarānīṭos (hot inflammation of the brain) and yellow and green in epilepsy. Furthermore, thickness or narrowing of the tongue reflects preponderance of wetness or dryness, respectively.

It was concluded from the study that attention to the tongue as an auxiliary diagnostic tool can open new ways to improve the process of diagnosis and treatment in the field of PM.