Indiana Medicine

From an article in INDIANA MEDICINE July/August 1995		John Peterson, M.D., of Muncie uses pulse diagnosis to help find the root cause of medical problems.
"I guess I really don't consider myself too alternative," says John C. Peterson. M.D. "I'm board certified in family practice, and I maintain my certification. I'm an assistant clinical professor at IU, so I teach medical students and residents all the traditional things." He also serves on the Delaware County Board of Health. Dr. Peterson has integrated Ayur-Veda, the medical science of ancient India, with his practice of mainstream Western medicine. How does a system that's thousands of years old mesh with modern medicine? "They're totally compatible," says Dr. Peterson. "I always explore in some depth what my patients have been through, ruling out things that could be approached in a conventional way. I make sure all cancers have been ruled out and that adequate conventional treatments have been tried. I look at ayurvedic medicine as a complement to include or as an alternative to go to when other things don't work. Some people of course want to try it as their first choice alternative, and I'm OK with that as long as I feel like we've covered all the bases." Dr. Peterson's interest in Ayur-Veda goes back to his days at the University of Iowa College of Medicine in the early 1970s, when he learned the Transcendental Meditation technique. "I haven't missed meditation twice a day for the last 23 years. It's a part of my life. It got me through medical school and my residency program with my mind at least partly intact," he laughs. Touring with the vaidyas In the 1980s, when vaidyas (Indian	doctors trained in Ayur-Veda) came to the United States on lecture tours, they were required to have licensed American physicians in attendance. Dr. Peterson was asked to sit in. "As they'd come through the Midwest, I'd meet up with them, and we'd lecture and tour together. It was a tremendous experience. When I first sat in, I was just curious. When I saw how powerful Ayur-Veda was, I wanted to learn it." Ayur-Veda is a Sanskrit word that means science or knowledge (veda) of life (ayu). According to Dr. Peterson, the basic principle in ayurvedic medicine is to find the root cause of medical problems. This is done by pulse diagnosis and body typing. The three doshas or principles that govern different aspects of the mind and body, are vata, pitta and kapha. Body type, personality and predisposition to diseases are determined by the relative proportions of these doshas, with one dosha usually primary. "All medicines and treatment can be totally individualized according to these body types," says Dr. Peterson. "The tendencies for diseases can also be determined from that. You can almost predict the kinds of problems a particular body type is going to get." By feeling the deep pulse with the second, third and fourth fingers, it is possible to confirm the primary body type, i.e., one's nature or prakriti. The superficial pulse reveals imbalances in the three doshas. These imbalances, or vikriti, says Dr. Peterson, are usually the seeds of a disease. Each dosha is subdivided into five subdoshas, which correspond to specific organ systems or functions. Ama, or impurities in the body tissues that obstruct the flow of blood and nutrients, can be detected in the mid-pulse.	"Pulse diagnosis is very systematic and gives a tremendous amount of information," says Dr. Peterson. "We'll set up a program first to remove the impurities, the ama, then bring balance to the doshas and hopefully return the patient to his or her nature, their prakrati." Ayur-Vedic treatments can involve all the senses, according to Dr. Peterson, and include music, meditation, stretching, physical therapy, massage, color therapy, aromatherapy, herbs and diet and even the architecture of a patient's residence. Wednesdays and Saturdays in Dr. Peterson's practice are set aside for patients who come from all over the Midwest, and as far away as Florida, for Ayur-Vedic consultations. On those days, says Dr. Peterson, who is also medical director of the Maharishi Ayurveda Health Center in Indianapolis, "we're as busy as we possibly could want to be. The trend is definitely going to Ayur-Veda." What about patients who come in to see Dr. Peterson, family physician? "Pulse diagnosis is the first thing I do in the office. It focuses my attention on the patient and gives me a lot of useful diagnostic information. I don't really talk much about Ayur-Veda if I feel that someone would be uncomfortable with foreign words and concepts. Of course when I ask a patient questions about really specific symptoms that show up in her pulse before she's said a word, she'll often get curious and want to learn more. Several times a day I may make simple Ayur-Vedic recommendations and occasionally I refer a regular patient to my Ayur-Vedic practice."