Pari Talks

  Conversion of Food into Energy P.K.Ghatak, MD No.40. Maintaining good health and happiness is dependent on a regular supply of nutrients, food, and water. Over the centuries, the food habits of humans have changed as societies adapted to the choice of food based on the available food production and supply. The current generation in the affluent countries is faced with a vexing problem – unsolicited advice and push to follow a certain diet and avoid certain other food items in the name of maintaining good health and avoiding illness. The fundamental human biochemistry remains the same irrespective of the positions these so-called specialists advocate. Humans are omnivorous – there is nothing on this earth that grows or moves that humans have not eaten. Irrespective of our desire or the cost of food, the food we eat belongs to carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Our body is prudent and comprehensively uses food substances. Like we use cash for immediate transactions and ...

  Common Cold P.K.Ghatak, MD No.39 The common cold is really very common. It is said that every adult gets 2 attacks and every child 6 attacks of the common cold every year. There are approximately 200 different viruses responsible for the common cold, including three groups of coronaviruses; however, Rhinovirus is responsible for about 50% of the common cold cases. The common cold is also called a Head Cold and a Viral URI (viral upper respiratory infection) Rhinovirus is an RNA virus. It thrives in the nose because the virus prefers a temperature of 89 degrees F, and the nose's temperature is very close to this, as opposed to the core body temperature of 98.6 degrees F. It is also true that exposure to cold makes a person susceptible to rhinovirus infection.  Viruses are living organisms but behave like inert particles, like darts, until the virus gets a foothold in a living cell. The virus then enters inside the cell and directs the cell's DNA / RNA to copy ...

  History of Leprosy. P.K.Ghatak, MD No. 38 The Atharva Veda is the oldest document, preceding any other text anywhere else in which leprosy is mentioned. It is defined as a flesh-eating disease. In Sushruta Samhita, written in 600 BCE, a complete description of leprosy appeared, and Chaulmoogra oil was recommended for application on skin lesions of leprosy and continued to be used till Dapsone was introduced for the treatment of leprosy in 1945. Alexander was blamed for bringing leprosy from India to the West with his soldiers. The slave trade business introduced leprosy to the Americas. After DNA analysis of bacteria was introduced as an investigative tool in epidemiology, the origin of leprosy has undergone modifications. DNA analysis indicates that leprosy originated from a single clone of a single nucleotide polymorphism. The origin of leprosy is still debated, likely originating in East Africa or the Near East. Four different strains of Mycobacterium leprae are identifi...

  Early History of Bubonic Plague. P.K.GhataK, MD No. 37 Ancient civilizations, such as Mesopotamia, China, Egypt, and India, have recorded accounts of outbreaks of rapidly spreading infectious diseases in their historical records. The epidemics often followed invasions and wars. Some of these stories go back to 1800 BCE. The descriptions are detailed enough that some of them are undoubtedly about the bubonic plague. Bubo is a Greek word meaning groin. Swelling in the groin is also called bubo. Today, bubo means painful enlargement of the lymph nodes in the groin. Scientists are handicapped in not being able to read these ancient manuscripts. They rely on the accounts of priests, ethologists, and scholars. Their expertise is not in medicine or epidemiology, and real substances are lost in translation. In addition, think of how much accumulated knowledge was lost in the burning of the Library of Alexandria and the Library of Nalanda University in India. It is known that ...

  History of Cholera P.K.Ghatak, MD Date 10.08.2025 No.36. Cholera is an acute gastroenteritis due to ingestion of contaminated food and water by a tiny, comma-shaped, motile bacterium belonging to the genus Vibrio. The natural habitat of Vibrio is the mangrove forest along the coastline of the Bay of Bengal. The crabs, other crustaceans, and the vegetation of the brackish water provide food and shelter for the vibrio.   The earliest recorded history of the cholera epidemic appeared only after the East India Company took over the administration of Bengal. The big cat is the apex predator of the forested area of the bay. People only ventured into the forest to catch shads during their run and to collect honey; some invariably lost their lives during the expeditions. And this was the main reason the cholera did not spread further into the sparse human settlements.  The British of the East India Company took up the sport of tiger hunting, which required many drum-beate...

 Science of Laser P.K.Ghatak, MD No.35 Atoms of all substances are in constant motion, vibrate, and rotate. The nucleus of an atom is made up of Protons and Neutrons . Electrons move around the nucleus in several circular orbits(currently considered in the form of a cloud). Electrons with low energy circle close to the nucleus and electrons with high energy in the distal orbits. Elections remain in their own orbits, unless they are disturbed by an energy that makes them either gain energy and move to an outer circle, or lose energy and move to an inward circle. Those electrons that gained energy returned to the initial state after a time. The excess energy is emitted as electromagnetic radiation . That emitted radiation has different wavelengths, moves in different directions, and is unpredictable. To produce Laser light , all the photons must be the same wavelength, travel in the same direction and the same color. This is achieved by Stimulated Emission . Stimulated Emission: S...

History of Smallpox Vaccine P.K.Ghatak, MD No.34 People from earlier days learned from their experiences that once they had survived an attack of Smallpox, they became immune to future smallpox. In ancient India. India introduced a method of deliberately infecting people with smallpox, the process was known as Tika and the people who administered smallpox were called Tikadar . It involved collecting the pus from a pustule of smallpox, applying a drop of the pus on the arm of an uninfected individual and superficial cuts were made by a sharp scalpel through the pus. The process was not totally safe; some developed full-blown smallpox and died, but the majority developed one lesion at the site of Tika and the lesion healed in 3 weeks, giving the person full immunity for the rest of their life. The vaccination reached China through Tibet. In China, the Chinese collected the scabs from the smallpox victims, dried and pulverized the scabs into a powder. They introduced the power in...

   Science  Behind Sonography. P.K. Ghatak, M.D. No.33. Ultrasound is a portion of sound that is beyond human ears can hear. The human hearing range is 20 to 20,000 Hz, and the intensity is 2 to 120 decibels (dB). A decibel is named after Alexander Graham Bell .  What is a Sonogram : The sound waves are generated by vibrating crystals. The sound waves, after encountering a barrier, reflect back some or nearly all sound waves. These reflected waves are collected and a computer generates pictures in great detail. The reflected sound waves are often called an Echo, and the images generated are called an Echogram . The Echo has a special quality, among the reflected sound waves, which must reach the human ears after some delays for it to be registered as a separate sound. This delay is called Impedance and the impedance is variable depending on the tissue, air, and fluid; this characteristic allows sonography to construct an image. An Italian scienti...

  Abnormal Gene and Cancer Dr.P.K.Ghatak, MD No.32. C hemically, the genes are composed of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA). There are four different nucleic acids - they are known as A, T, G & C. AT and GC always appear in pairs and are called Base Pairs . The three of these base pairs make a word of the coded instruction. A gene, on average, contains 17,000 Base Pairs and may contain as many as several million. Human chromosomes carry 3.2 billion base pairs and only 25,000 genes are known to code proteins. We have 23 pairs of chromosomes and we inherit one strand of the chromosome from each parent. Cell death is programmed into the genes. If and when programmed cell death fails in one cell, this cell continues to live and multiply. This is the beginning of tumor growth and ultimately leads to cancer formation. Errors may appear in the spelling of coded words (Mutation), words may be dropped (Deletion), or attached to a different place ( Translocation ). The cells of an o...

                                                      Basic Science of MRI                                                            P.K. Ghatak, M.D. No. 31 Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is one of the most advanced bioengineering technologies introduced in medical diagnostic equipment. Protons and Electrons, when placed in an Electromagnetic field, become excited, either due to absorption or emission of Electromagnetic Radiation. This phenomenon was first observed by the Soviet scientist Y.K. Zavoysky in 1944. The Nuclear Magnetic Resonance was detected by physicists Bloch and Purcell in 1946. Basic characteristics of human cells that are utilized in MRI. Every living cell of the body contains water (H...