that so far as Allopathic drugs which were sold across the counter for common ailments were concerned, no deep knowledge in regard to these drugs was necessary, even for practitioners of other systems of medicines like Ayurvedic or Unani, etc, and it was open for them to prescribe and administer those Allopathic medicines which were sold across the counter for common ailments. In this case, the Court did not treat different systems of medicines as being water-tight compartments with no overlapping. As you may be aware, Ayurvedic drugs are available over the counter, as they do not fall under the category of “prescription drugs�, under Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. . Thus, the allopathic doctors would be fully entitled to prescribe such drugs of which they have sufficient knowledge from the literature relating to those drugs available in the allopathic medical literature including various medical journals of allopathic medicines. If a drug, even if it is of Ayurvedic origin, has been tested and clinical trials have been performed on that drug by allopathic doctors and the reports of those trials are contained in medical journals covering allopathic medicine, it would clearly demonstrate that such drugs have become a part of modern Allopathic Medical Practice. It would therefore be totally incongruous for anybody to contest that merely because the origin of a drug was in an ancient system of medicine; it is not legally permissible for Allopathic Doctors to prescribe that drug. It would only be logical to further conclude that, an allopathic doctor is as much qualified person to prescribe an Ayurvedic over-the-counter drug which otherwise
could be obtained by an ordinary citizen who is a layman in the field of medicine, by mere asking at the counter of a medicine store or from any general store, since stocking and sale of these OTC products does not require any special license under the Drugs and Pharmacy Act. A non-allopathic doctor is restrained from administering allopathic medicine because of the serious side effects the allopathic medicines have; whereas an Ayurvedic Medicine does not have such adverse side effects. It is for this reason that most of the Ayurvedic medicines are not scheduled drugs and are available to patients directly without any prescription. Hence, it would be erroneous and draconian to contend that a drug, which could be prescribed by a patient himself, cannot be prescribed by an allopathic doctor who is well qualified because such an understanding would be adverse to public health and against public interest. Conclusion and Recommendations Since it is evident that the market has already determined an important way in which Ayurveda is being practised, it is time to take note of these developments. It is quite apparent that the adoption of Ayurvedic drugs depends to a significant extent on the acceptability by the doctors of the dominant medical system. Therefore the route followed by HDC, and some others needs to be taken note of together with what is happening among the younger generation of practitioners who are the products of Ayurvedic colleges. If integration is already being practised through the adjuvant use of the drugs in addition to traditional practice, a lesson has to be taken
Status of Integration  51