LUCKNOW: While the word ‘Allopathy’ was used for the first time in 1827 by Samuel Hahnemann, Sushrut was born in 800 BC.
As most of us are not even aware how conditioned we are, it is not easy to choose the better out of the two.
We see what we want to see, and love the status quo.
For example, even during the 18th Century, people opposed efforts to such an extent that Jonas Hanway was attacked when he carried an umbrella in London in 1780.
There was a gap of 78 years in acceptance of small pox vaccination.
Let us understand how allopathy has flourished globally so well.
Mainly due to research and usage of modern technology for precise diagnosis, followed by quick cure by using new medicines.
The dictum is: what is measurable must be measured; and what is yet not measurable, efforts should continue to make it measurable.
However, within the best of medical fraternity abroad also, there have been near cruel opposition to creativity and brilliance due to prevailing conditioning among them.
The pioneer of laparoscopy in 1960s, Kurt Karl Stephan Semm, was fiercely opposed; while he was in the middle of a slide projection, his projector was unplugged with the explanation that such unethical surgery should not be presented.
He had even to undergo a brain-scan because colleagues suspected that only a person with brain damage would perform laparoscopic surgery.
However, his journey of excellence continued.
Mahesh Yogi published his research on Transcendental Meditation in Scientific American and his professionals presented their research paper in the International Congress of Physiology in Frankfurt.
Another success story is of Padma Shri Professor KN Udupa, founder-director of the Institute of Medical Science, BHU.
He had a degree, both in ayurvedic medicine and MS from the University of Michigan in 1948 and FRCS from Canada.
He was an icon.
The Government of India had appointed a committee under his chairmanship which was called Udupa Committee.
What best can we do today? First, the government should take care of the report submitted by the Udupa Committee in April 1959.
Second, we must follow what Nobel Laureate Francis Crick wrote in Nature (UK) in February 2003: “In nature, hybrid species are usually sterile, but in science the reverse is true.
Hybrid subjects are often astonishingly fertile whereas if a science discipline remains too pure it usually wilts.” We have hope that our learned Union health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan will ensure that holistic and integrated medicine authentically helps us with lesser “tol-mol” and more “tal-mel”, etymologically true to his name: “Enhancement of Joy”.
(The writer is the former vice-chancellor of the universities at Gorakhpur, Bareilly, Agra and Aligarh.
Views expressed here are his own)