Full Text
The physiology deals with how each and every organ in the human body functions just like how the fresh water and sea water exchange with one another on day to day basis. When these exchanges are not done in the proper perspective the disease supervenes. As a physician one has to understand the subject in depth in order to diagnose and manage disease. Every system in our body has different functions to perform with complex physiology where many enzymes, hormones, chemical messengers’ and other secretions work in coordination. As a medical student, I did have a great antipathy to this subject. I somehow felt more attention was paid to human anatomy, whereas physiology was taught in a very boring manner by Professors who did not really work in the Clinical Subjects. In our time we were told to read a great text book by Best and Taylor. This is really a good one for those who do Ph.D. in physiology. I never really liked the subject at that time and on the contrary I hated it. I started liking and enjoyed the subject when I started to do my M.D in Anesthesiology at AIIMS. The subject which forms the basis for practicing this speciality are Physiology, Pharmacology, Physics and being a physician for the surgical patients along with technical knowhow to take care of any acute problems which arise or circumvent them during surgery with excellent hand-brain coordination to sustain the physiological changes during surgery often referred as peri operative physicians.
In physiology the sodium (Na) content decides the osmolarity and controls the normal functionality of the cells. This is similar to human body where 3/4th of the body comprises of water. The fresh water from rivers ultimately merges to the seas, as the salinity draws the fresh water into the sea. On the other hand the body prevents Na entering the cell for longer periods to prevent dilution and monitors physiological changes continuously.
The earth and the body have the composition of many electrolytes like sodium, potassium, chloride, magnesium, and phosphorus etc. Similarly the human body has more oxygen & less carbon dioxide which is vice-versa in nature. The nature has more sea water as it occupies 3/4th of the earth. If one looks at our own body, the fresh water is more in comparison. This water is basically divided into intra and extra cellular water. Former is inside whereas the latter is outside the cell. The intra cellular water has less sodium which we can attribute as fresh water which forms the 3/4the content in the body. Thus it makes a great sense that having less sodium content does not draw water in to the cell and allow it performs the functions in normal way. Intra cellular fluid as it is referred forms two thirds of water in the body while the extra cellular water forms one third of the content. When we look back at human physiology and the nature there are so many similarities. Understating it and making it as a basic subject to teach Medicine goes a long way to understand various physiological processes and how they are connected with nature and how the abnormal physiology will cause various problems. In depth understanding will gives us the courage to treat the patients in a better way. Somehow I always felt that I should teach physiology to medical students as Anaesthesiologist has a lot of understanding of this particular subject.
Knowledge from bench that is physiology to bedside medicine is to understand physiology as how it alters the various treatment modalities. Each organ has different functions. Heart is a pump, kidney is a filter liver is a factory and brain is an electrical ware house. All of them work together harmoniously in health and any deviation in their function causes disease and spreads to others. However, this balance is also distorting due to so called modernization of our society and leading to an increase in respiratory and air borne diseases. Moreover, when this balance is tilted the ecosystem is affected leading to extreme climatic conditions causing havoc. Climate change has been depicted very well by a poet by name Veera Brahmam garu in his book “How the world is going to shape in future”. We come and go but universe sustains all the creatures with a delicate balancing act. When this balance gets disturbed then disaster supervenes. The entire human race have to awaken otherwise on a D day the whole earth will be covered by water and ages may start all over again unless we try to preserve the delicate balance on which the nature operates.
Now let’s us look at the philosophy of life from the perspective of vedic literature, mother earth has been referred as Bhoodevi, which is the planet earth. The next woman named Sridevi who is the goddess of wealth is joined with Vishnu to run the Planet. Bhoodevi is depicted as a woman but agni (Fire), vayu (Air), jala (Water) and space are depicted as gods or spirits who will give the right sustenance to her and all of them have together were referred as Pancha Bhootas. The human body has all these elements and the space is body itself. In moderate range all have godly powers provided we are helpful to humanity and respect the nature.
In the Vedas they have depicted three Gods namely as Trimurthis, Brahma, the creator, his consort is Devi Saraswathi, the goddess of knowledge; she resides on his tongue and propagates the knowledge flow for creating the world. The next one is Vishnu, who is the god to mentor the economic front along with Lakshmi the goddess of wealth. Ultimately Lord Shiva who is the destroyer of evil and his consort is Shakthi. Ultimately they say these are our protectors and the people have to live in harmony and work as Vasudeva Kutumbakam is how the world is referred.
If you can destroy your evil genius and look at the good side, then god will reside in you. God has no shape or akara and it is the spirit which resides in you that is the reason we greet with namaste or pranam to everyone till our breath becomes air. The nature has been depicted as the most powerful and all the creatures are nothing but an ion in the vast universe. If these ions are positively charged their perspective towards life is positive and will do good things to sustain life on the planet. If they are negatively charged with they will breed lot of bad thoughts like greed and selfishness, is so then the nature’s fury is definitely going to be on us. Well times are changing for better or worse only the time can tell. The basic nature of women is mothers love and affection. It is good to have gender equality and economic independence to do things which one wants and achieve many things without many obstacles. Woman should not forgets that nature resides in her and her primary objective is giving love and affection and teaches right things to the children to up hold the way of life and keeps the mother nature smiling.
Conclusion
Understanding the human physiology and its relevance to nature and the way of life is really what is required by any human being. The religions, the customs and rituals are created by us. If we have tolerance to one another then life on earth is beautiful experience as we only have one life to live. It has been shown that the life finally ends with a Pralaya that is, the water will take over the land. We are seeing this, with a climate change and extinction of many species; we are fast approaching, what has been written in the Vedas. Unless all of us take note and find ways and means to reverse this change, like ending wars, pollution and live as a global family. We have already turned the world into a global village with technology. Too much or too little of any one of them causes calamities. The Vedas have said that correct use of these natural resources is harmonious to everyone. Inclusiveness, equality and justice in correct time should be the order of the day for a bright future. In this short paper I tried to include all the aspects of our modern life to give a fairly simple explanation to all my fellow humans.
Acknowledgements
I profusely thank Dr. Vinod Kumar Verma, Principal Scientist in KFRC for concising the article for publication.
Conflicts of interest
Author declares no conflicts of interest.