The Human Machine: How to Prevent Breakdowns

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This time-honoured book, which has been around for about 30 years, provides the layman correct knowledge about the complexities of the human body in a language that is easy to understand. The functions of the normal human being have been explained with special reference to the deviations, which we call disease.

Dr. R.L. Bijlani (1947-) was Professor and Head of the Department of Physiology at his alma mater, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, from 1996-2005. In the year 2005 he took early retirement to find more time for doing what he likes the most, which is writing: he now has 19 books to his credit. Currently, he lives and works at Sri Aurobindo Ashram - Delhi Branch. He conducts spiritual retreats, gives inspirational talks, conducts yoga programs, and continues to write.

Dr. S.K. Manchanda (1931-1998) was Professor and Head of the Department at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi from 1974-1991. He was the recipient of many awards, including the Hari Om Ashram Award for contribution to basic medical sciences and the P.K. Anokhin Memorial Medal of the USSR Academy of Medical Sciences.

The Human Machine, I mean the book titled The Human Machine, has been around for almost 30 years. Thirty years is typically the gap between two consecutive generations; which means that a young person who read the first edition of this book in 1990 and liked it, can now recommend the current edition to his or her child. For a book to last that long is a matter of pride for the authors, but in case of a book on a scientific subject, it poses for the new generation of readers the risk of being fed on outdated knowledge. To this very valid apprehension, I have a two-fold response: reassurance and revision. I would like to reassure the readers that in an elementary book like this, which has only the most basic facts, very little gets out of date. Secondly, the book has been revised to ensure that what has become out of date is eliminated, and some advances in knowledge relevant to the book have been added. Some of the additions to the new edition are: a paragraph each on spiritual health, epigenetics, irritable bowel, eye exercises for prevention and management of refractive errors, yogasanas and pranayamas in pregnancy, and sex education. Significant modifications have been made in the paragraphs on the human genome project, balanced diet, and the surgical treatment of cataract. The immunization schedule has been brought up-to-date, and confusing and obsolete units such as Angstroms have been replaced by the simpler units like nanometers. Some of these additions and modifications were necessitated by new knowledge; some were driven by current trends; and some were prompted by my current interests.

Health is a positive state of physical and mental well-being and not merely absence of disease. It would be evident to any person who has studied medicine that human machine is the most ingeniously devised, designed and constructed mechanism that exists in the universe. It has systems of checks and balances and mechanisms which help preserve a state of normality in whatever environment the human body is placed and whatever provocations it is subjected to. As medical knowledge advances, we learn more and more of the mysteries of the structure and metabolic processes which contribute to the state of positive health and defend the body against disease. Intricacies of these mechanisms are hard to understand fully even for a medical student.

Each one of us has our own notions about the functioning of the body, the effect of different kinds of diets and climate on the systems which are based not on any facts but on what we have heard others say. There is acute paucity or near absence of any published material in layman's language which provides correct knowledge about the complex human organism.

Dr Bijlani and Dr Manchanda have done a remarkable job to put across for the layman, knowledge of the human machine in a language that everyone can understand. The simple, cleverly designed diagrams supplement the understanding. I am sure this work has filled a lacuna and every reader will find the experience of going through this book most rewarding.