DAMASCUS: Three years ago, Mohammad survived a heart attack that later caused his leg to bloat out of proportion. After visiting several doctors to find a cure he was finally diagnosed with a blocked vein and told that there was nothing much apart from certain exercises that he could do for his condition. The bloating abated but the wound never healed. When modern medicine could do nothing to cure him, Mohammad turned to Hassan al-Mawla, an “Arabic doctor” who works with herbs and food to cure ailments.

Mawla gave him some powder to dry the wound and administered a liquid orally. “My leg is certainly much better,” says Mohammad, rolling up his pant leg and revealing the now healed wound. Mohammad is not alone in his discovery of this traditional medicine man.

Another of Mawla’s patients, Fatmeh Allam, seems to have cured her constipation and bloating by drinking a mixture of liquid and herbs. She says her desperate attempts with modern medicine failed.

Mawla was inspired to take up traditional, or “Arabic”, medicine by his grandfather, Assaad al-Mawla, who was known in his day to cure ailments in their village in Bustanieh, near Homs. The grandfather, reportedly cured conjunctivitis and many other diseases with herbs.

Mawla says that his field is very complicated. “You have to know where each particular herb grows, during what month, in what climate and soil conditions as well as its effects on people.”

He claims the knowledge originated in a book that was brought from Morocco hundreds of years ago, which he keeps with him whenever he goes. “It is difficult understanding what the book says because many herbs used to have different names then,” says Mawla.

Mawla says he is also aware that some herbs cannot be given to patients suffering from certain diseases. He says people from Jordan and Lebanon come to him for problems such as low sperm count and psoriasis, a skin disorder. “I have to import many of the herbs from other countries such as Morocco and Egypt because they don’t all grow here,” said Mawla, “but you have to be very careful because people try to trick you and sell you the wrong herb.”

He also has a specific way of administering his prescriptions. “I do it by grams according to weight and I proceed in stages,” he said. He says he reads up on many books about herbs, and his dream is to travel to Morocco, Egypt and India to learn more about the subject as it is practised in those countries.

Herbal medicine in Syria is much less controlled than in other countries. Herbs generally need careful packaging and storing, none of which were evident at Mawla’s shop. One should also keep in mind that although Mawla did demonstrate a knowledge of herbs and medicine, he is not a doctor, and almost seems to rely on trial and error.

And while he insists that his treatments result in quicker results than those obtained via traditional medical approaches, he admits that modern medicine is a necessity. Residents who visit Mawla seem satisfied with his work. Mawla believes that it cannot hurt to try, and he insists patients only pay after they are healed. —Dawn/InterPress Service.