A Novel Approach to COVID-19 Pneumonia according to Persian Medicine

COVID-19 pulmonary manifestations vary from mild pneumonia to acute respiratory distress syndrome. Regarding the lack of specific treatment, its wide range of clinical manifestations, and especially the similarity of manifestation to different types of pneumonia in Persian medicine references, this research wants to review pneumonia from the viewpoint of traditional Persian medicine.

In this review study, the keywords of “zat-alrrieh”, and “awram-e-rieh” were searched in the most important Persian medicine references. The results were classified and concluded.

In traditional Persian medicine references, diagnosis of diseases is mainly according to clinical manifestations of each patient. In those references, pneumonia is considered as hot inflammation of the lung. There are different clinical manifestations and treatments concerning the pathologic Khelt (Humor) and stage of the disease. The goals of treatments are regulating Mizaj (Temperament), excretion of pathologic Khelt, and body empowerment. In addition to diet modification and oral medication, topical medication such as anointment, poultice, enema, cupping, gargling, and aromatherapy and manual therapies such as bloodletting are recommended to treat pneumonia.

Due to the similarity of manifestations of pneumonia especially emerging COVID-19 pneumonia to described pneumonia in Persian medicine references and the reports of successful experiences in the application of traditional treatment, clinical trials to evaluate the effect of Persian medicine treatments especially as a treatment package are recommended.