LUGELA in the System of Traditional, Official, and Evidence-Based Medicine
Historical Misconception of Terms
In everyday speech, ancient systems of medical knowledge are often called non-traditional, while the relatively young biomedical model is referred to as traditional. From a historical and terminological perspective, this is a semantic inversion. Traditional medicine represents knowledge, skills, and practices formed by peoples over centuries and millennia, long before modern biomedicine.
However, correcting terminology does not require opposing tradition and science. The age of a method alone does not prove its therapeutic effectiveness, nor does traditional origin serve as a reason for rejection. Science studies accumulated experience, determines the composition of the remedy, the mechanism of biological action, clinical effects, indications, methods of use, and safety conditions.
Scientifically Precise Meaning of Terms
| Term | Scientifically Accurate Meaning | Historical Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Traditional Medicine | Historically developed knowledge and practices of peoples that arose before modern biomedicine. | Centuries and millennia |
| Modern Biomedicine | A scientific and clinical system based on biology, physiology, pathology, diagnostics, and regulated practice. | Especially strengthened in the 19th–20th centuries |
| Evidence-Based Medicine | A clinical decision-making method involving critical appraisal of research, clinical experience, and patient characteristics. | Term: 1991; dissemination: since 1992 |
| Complementary and Alternative Medicine | Practices used together with, or instead of, conventional therapy. Status is determined by the mode of use. | No single date of origin |
Traditional and evidence-based medicine are not opposites. The former characterizes the historical origin of knowledge; the latter defines the method of its scientific verification and clinical evaluation. The same therapeutic factor can have traditional origins and simultaneously possess scientifically established properties.
1910 and Limits of Correct Historical Conclusion
The year 1910 is associated with the publication of Abraham Flexner's report on medical education in the USA and Canada. This document significantly influenced the standardization of physician training and the institutional strengthening of the biomedical model in North America. It is not the date of origin of either scientific or traditional medicine. Scientific medicine developed long before the report, and traditional healing systems have existed for many centuries.
LUGELA: From Folk Experience to Scientific Knowledge
Historical materials indicate that LUGELA was used by local populations for therapeutic purposes for many generations. Knowledge about its properties arose empirically, was preserved in folk memory, and transmitted long before laboratory and clinical study. Therefore, in terms of origin, LUGELA belongs to traditional medicine in the precise international sense of the term.
In the first half of the 20th century, LUGELA became the subject of systematic chemical, hydrogeological, physiological, pharmacological, and clinical research. The composition of the natural complex, its stability, absorption features, effects on physiological processes, and possibilities of topical, oral, and parenteral application were studied. Results were published in monographs, articles, dissertations, and materials of specialized scientific-medical institutions.
This marked a fundamental transition: empirical knowledge was not rejected but translated into the domain of scientific research. LUGELA entered medical practice not only as a natural source but as an independent object of pharmacological and clinical analysis.
State and Professional Recognition
Professor D. V. Javakhishvili’s monograph reports that in 1945 the Scientific Council of the USSR Ministry of Health recognized LUGELA healing water as unique. The author characterized it as a genuine natural medicine and emphasized that the natural composition of LUGELA represents a complex and exceptionally successful chemical complex suitable for therapeutic use in its natural form.
Historical and bibliographic materials also record the inclusion of LUGELA in 1946 in the USSR State Pharmacopoeia as a unique natural medicinal product. In subsequent years, its professional status was confirmed by scientific publications, clinical use, and regulatory approval for pharmacy distribution. The totality of these facts indicates that LUGELA went far beyond purely folk use and gained recognition within the official healthcare system of the USSR.
Accuracy of Institutional Formulation
Scientific and state recognition of LUGELA has a documented basis. Professor D. V. Javakhishvili’s monograph states that in 1945 the USSR Ministry of Health’s Scientific Council recognized LUGELA as a unique healing water, and in 1946 LUGELA was included in the USSR State Pharmacopoeia as a unique natural medicinal product.
Therefore, the pharmacopoeial status of LUGELA is not a supposition but a historically documented fact confirming its official recognition and inclusion in the professional medical system of the USSR.
Official status always pertains to a particular jurisdiction and historical period. Thus, it is correct to assert that LUGELA has a documented history of state recognition and regulated medical use in the USSR. The current legal status of the product in a specific country is determined by active registration documents. This legal clarification does not negate the established historical fact of recognition.
LUGELA and Artificial Calcium Chloride Solution
The high calcium chloride content explains the external chemical similarity of LUGELA to its concentrated solutions used in medicine. However, scientific sources explicitly emphasize: similarity in the main component does not imply identity of pharmacodynamic action and therapeutic properties. LUGELA represents a naturally formed multicomponent complex whose action is not reduced to the sum of properties of a single chemical compound.
Professor D. V. Javakhishvili’s monograph presents experimental and clinical data according to which LUGELA in several studied effects surpassed the artificially prepared calcium chloride solution. Specifically described are more pronounced and longer-lasting increases of calcium content in blood serum, better absorption, a diuretic effect absent in the comparable solution, and advantages in studies of hemostatic action and some clinical observations. Based on these data, the authors recommended LUGELA as preferred for appropriate indications.
An independent comparative confirmation is contained in the 1961 dissertation by I. G. Andguladze. In clinical groups, the action of LUGELA was compared to a 10% calcium chloride solution. According to the intradermal test with tripan blue, enhancement of adsorption-phagocytic capacity of active mesenchyme under LUGELA influence was somewhat more pronounced: the average coefficient by day 21 increased 1.5–1.8 times, while in calcium chloride solution groups, 1.3–1.4 times.
Scientific Significance of the Comparison
LUGELA is not a natural copy of artificial calcium chloride. Comparative studies show its biological effect is determined by an integral natural complex of components and, by certain studied parameters, was more pronounced than the effect of the comparable calcium chloride solution.
LUGELA in Official, Complementary, and Evidence-Based Medicine
The terms official, complementary, and alternative medicine describe not the substance’s origin but its institutional status and method of use. In the USSR, LUGELA was the subject of official scientific study and medical application. In modern practice, its use along with mainstream therapy is considered complementary or integrative. It becomes alternative only when offered instead of necessary accepted treatment. Therefore, defining LUGELA solely as an alternative medicine product is historically and scientifically incorrect.
Evidence-based medicine is not a separate treatment type either. It is a method to evaluate medical claims. Regarding LUGELA, such evaluation involves not the permissibility of natural origin but the specific results of chemical, experimental, pharmacological, and clinical studies. The emergence of the term evidence-based medicine in 1991 does not nullify the scientific value of earlier works. Their significance is determined by methodology, completeness of description, group comparability, objectivity of indicators, and reproducibility of observations.
The scientific corpus on LUGELA contains data on composition, pharmacodynamic features, administration routes, indications, dosages, and observed therapeutic effects. Consequently, LUGELA has not only a traditional history but also a formed scientific biography, including laboratory research, experimental pharmacology, clinical observations, and state recognition.
Academic Conclusion
LUGELA is a unique natural therapeutic agent of traditional origin, whose properties were successively translated from folk experience into the domain of systematic scientific knowledge. Its composition and biological action have been studied by chemical, experimental, pharmacological, and clinical methods. Research results have been reflected in monographs, scientific articles, and dissertations, and historical state recognition has secured LUGELA’s place in professional medical practice.
Comparative studies with artificially prepared calcium chloride solutions are of fundamental importance. They show that LUGELA cannot be reduced to a solution of one active component. Its natural multicomponent complex has independent pharmacodynamic characteristics, better absorption, and by some studied parameters more pronounced therapeutic effects.
Thus, it is scientifically incorrect to confine LUGELA within the categories of a folk remedy, mineral drink, or alternative practice. By origin, it belongs to traditional medicine; by study history and recognition, it pertains to official scientific-medical practice; by mode of current use, it may be part of complementary and integrative therapy; by the nature of accumulated data, it is the subject of evidence-based evaluation.
Tradition discovered LUGELA. Science established its composition, studied its biological action, and confirmed its therapeutic properties. Official medicine recognized it as a unique natural remedy and introduced it into professional practice.
The strength of LUGELA lies in the unity of natural origin, centuries-old experience, scientifically established effects, and documented medical recognition.
Main Sources and References
- World Health Organization. Materials on Traditional, Complementary, and Integrative Medicine.
- Guyatt G., Cairns J., Churchill D. et al. Evidence-Based Medicine: A New Approach to Teaching the Practice of Medicine. JAMA. 1992;268(17):2420–2425.
- Flexner A. Medical Education in the United States and Canada. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 1910.
- Javakhishvili D. V. Mineral Water "LUGELA": Characteristics and Therapeutic Properties. Tbilisi: Gruzmedgiz, 1953.
- Andguladze I. G. Influence of LUGELA Mineral Water on the Functional State of Active Mesenchyme in Tuberculosis: Dissertation for Candidate of Medical Sciences Degree. Tbilisi, 1961.
- Scientific works of M. Lezhava, G. Gvishiani, E. Kvitsaridze, and other researchers summarized in the monograph of D. V. Javakhishvili.
- Order of the USSR Ministry of Health No. 409 dated May 19, 1967, “On the Sale of Medicinal Mineral Waters through Pharmacies.”