Healing Through the Ages: Traditional Medical Practices

Wooden Medicine Box
This box with various compartments housing varying sizes of glass bottles, was used to store medicines.

Placed within the box are glass bottles of varying sizes.

A leather pouch and a metal box with brass scale weights used to weigh the medicine, are also placed within the box.

Herbalism is the world’s oldest form of healthcare. It has been practiced in the Arabian Gulf since ancient times. Herbalists, known as Attareen, have an intimate knowledge of local and regional plants; their expertise has traditionally been passed on from one generation to the next.

Metal Container
A small decorated metallic container used to store crushed herbs.

Many plants used for medicinal purposes grow in the United Arab Emirates. Others are imported from neighbouring countries including Oman, Iran, India, the island of Socotra, and East Africa.

Remedies developed by traditional healers have proved effective in treating a range of health problems and are still used today.

Earthen Pot
Earthen clay pots such as these were used by medical practitioners to sterilize medicinal tools and heat herbal mixtures.

Hijama (wet cupping) and Takhbeen (dry cupping), commonly practiced by the Mutabbib (physical ailments healer) involves the placement of suction cups on a patient’s back to create a vacuum to suck up blood which was believed to purify and regenerate the circulatory system. It is still practiced in different parts of the world today.

Goat Horns
Goat horns were widely used in the traditional Hijama (wet cupping) practice.

The cups were made of goat's horns with a valve mechanism in them to create a partial vacuum by sucking the air out.

Known as the Makhbana, clay cups such as these were heated and used to perform a dry cupping treatment called Takhbeen, on body parts of those suffering from painful blocked arteries.

These hot cups create a vacuum, drawing blood to the surface of the skin, thus relieving pain and discomfort.

Ceramic cups were also used for the dry cupping treatment Takhbeen.

Healers use the same technique of heating the cups to relieve body parts with painful blocked arteries.

Kayy, or cauterisation, was a pre-modern medical treatment using red-hot metal rods to disinfect and seal wounds or treat illness by application to pressure points.

Known as the Maysam, these metal rods were used for the traditional practice of Kayy.

Medical Box with Surgical Tools
A metal medical box with a set of metallic surgical tools used traditionally by medical practitioners in the region.

Otoscope
An Otoscope used for examining the ear.

A Klinostik handheld Otoscope.

Ophthalmoscope
A Hamblin handheld Ophthalmoscope equipped with a set rotating disc of lenses to permit the doctor’s observation of the eye at varying depths and magnifications.

The people of Dubai still practise traditional medicine, and use it to complement modern healthcare practices.