They are spread all over the city — in dinghy lanes, tiny corner shops,
upstairs in narrow alleys, inside four-foot cubicles. Not known by many
and often a target of scepticism, but they claim to provide the best
medical treatment. In alternate medicine it is known as the cupping
therapy; local practitioners call it Hijama.
Inside a Hijama clinic,
opposite the Special Investigative Unit of the Sindh police, a patient
sits quietly. A cup is inverted over his head, blood collects into the
cup. He sits stationary and refuses to move. It is hard to gauge if he
is in pain or not.
This is how the treatment works. A glass cup is
inverted over an incision made on the body. Blood is sucked into the
cup. Once a session is over, the glass cup is broken and discarded.
On
the first floor of a building on MA Jinnah Road is situated a clinic
which claims to be the pioneer of Hijama in Karachi. It is a modest,
three-room office, which comprises a waiting room, a consultation room
and a clinic where Hijama is practised.
“It is painless, leaves no
marks and has no side effect,” said Tajuddin, the owner who has been
practising Hijama for the past 15 years.
He shows a booklet, where
pressure points for each illness are marked on a human figure; points
for men and women are different. “If you read this book you can become a
Hijama practitioner yourself, but it is advisable to practise with an
experienced person for a few years before starting one’s own practice.”
The
idea behind the treatment is that illness is caused because of infected
blood. Sometimes blood collects between the layer of skin and flesh.
This blood has to be taken out.
“The problem with anti-biotech and
pain killers is that it makes the virus inactive. But the virus inside
the body may become active later on. Hijama takes out bad blood, and
with it the virus. Hence chances of the disease recurring are very low,”
explains Tajuddin.
The man who taught all of Karachi Hijama is not
Madrassa-educated. In fact, he is an MBBS doctor and former dean faculty
of medicine at the Liaquat National Hospital. Dr Amjad Ahsan Ali has
been a staunch believer in Hijama or cupping therapy. His research on
the topic has been published internationally.
Now he is often found at Madrassa Ayesha, where he teaches his disciples the art.
Practitioners
of Hijama claim to cure acute illnesses, such as cancer, sciatica and
problems of the backbone. Several practitioners opt for this particular
branch of medicine after personally witnessing its benefits.
“I had terrible pain in my knees. I took treatment for a few months. The pain is gone,” said Ahliya Alees, a woman practitioner.
And
people who have benefited from the treatment are not just common people
but renowned doctors as well. In fact, some doctors refer patients to
the Hijama clinic.
Dr Nadeemullah Khan, an associate professor at a
leading medical university hospital in the private sector, in January
2005, wrote that after seeking various orthopedic and rheumatologist,
and physiotherapy he sought Hijama. “I underwent the procedure thrice. I
got substantial relief the first time, and after three times I got
completely cured.”
A cup costs around Rs200 and a session is charged according to the number of cups used.
However,
Dr Samrina Hashmi, who heads the Sindh chapter of the Pakistan Medical
Association, remains sceptical. “Never in medical history have I heard
about this phenomenon. There is so much blood in the body. How can one
be sure which is bad, and remove it from one small incision in the
body?”
