The positive sides of modern medicine.

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Dear Friends, It is time to write about the positive side of modern medicine. This method of medicine has given us many enduring gifts. The first thing is that it taught us about the importance of hygiene that we had maintained in the Vedic days but had subsequently forgotten crushed as were under the grind of poverty. Poverty and fear made our society the happy hunting ground for many superstitions that modern medicine helped eradicate. It taught us about the value of nutrition and sought to educate us about simple preventive techniques to ward off disease. Economy was the watchword of this science as it sought to popularise scientic thought. Modern medicine also recovered medical knowledge from the clutches of a few and brought it into the public domain. It tried its best to make things transparent. It also tried to make medicine available to all sections of the society. It

made systematic the gathering of medical knowledge, its repository as well as its dissemination. It also focussed on the need for research to keep up with the times and gave us templates to be used as measuring rods for progress. It tried to inculcate an element of fairness and selfless sacrifice into the pratice of medicine. It restored accountability and formulated a list of dos and don'ts for all to follow. And the most important, it tried its best to reduce the risks of medicine in order to ensure that society was never harmed by reckless use of medications. This system of a close study of the effects of medicines and procedures upon patients and reporting of the same is the greatest gift of science to the medical arena. It sought to ensure that controls were in place to check misuse at all levels. Ongoing research procedures were made democratic to ensure that no section was able to dominate and strangle the free flow of information. Moreover

by designating scientists as field workers it sought the interaction of science with society and ensured that the voice of all sections of the society was taken into consideration. It ensured that ethics formed the spine of this life giving and sustaining arena. It encouaged critcism so that vox populi decided what was best and thus ensured that common sense was never discarded in the path of growth. It also opened the route for fresh thought from all sections of the society, based upon latest findings, to ensure that there was no stagnation. It sought to ensure that there was never any narrowness or reluctance, or opposition to usher in change whenever it was so required. Scientific medicine sought to grow and become a blessing to mankind based upon its power to prevent, cure and eradicate disease and thus spread good health, happiness, and increased productivity all around. The above framework should be

the basis of all changes that are to come. It is time to go back to basics and review all the basic tenets of this science so that it's progress can be streamlined and hubris removed. It is time for science to revert to its pristine form shaking off the negativities that threaten to bury its very purpose. Regards, Jagannath. "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." - Aurobindo.

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