English
But the definition will be more logical and correct if we say, “Disease is the state of body and mind, produced in the organism, by a morbific agent and the organism reacting against it.” It is yet controversial whether infections are transmitted by heredity (adivccla). According to Weissman (gemules of Darwin a,iid plastidules of Haeckel are now practically discarded as bearers of heredity) the germplasm is a bridge between the past and the present, linking man to the first-developed unicellular existence. The germplasm or the germinative cell assures the continuity of life and progress. In the lowest step of the ladder in animal life, among protozoa, reproduction takes place by fission, budding or both combined when the mother cell, through excess of nutrition divides into two as a relief of cellular tension. With the growth of organic life and specialization of cells as an economy for functional utilities, special cells {garnets) have been developed for repi’oduction. In further evolution, garnets have been differen¬ tiated into female garnet (ovum) and male garnet PATHOLOGY 109 1 {spermatozoon). Their amphimixis tends to cause variation, while the germ-plasm tries to conserve the type. Hence inspite of infinite Yariety, never two beings being the same, there is a fundamental unity of the • species, as modifi¬ cations are very slow. The germplasm—the bearer of heredity, is the "chi'omatin' substance of the reproductive cell- nucleus. The chromatin divides into chromosomes {idants) and when they break up again, the smaller units are called chromomeres(M6)and each chromomere or ‘irf’ contains all the dynamic poten¬ tialities —generic, specific, individual, which under appropriate nutrition and temperature, forms the organism. . Each Hd' is surrounded by hypotheti¬ cal units, called the 'determinants' and determin¬ ants by 'biphores' which are supposed to exercise the directing influence in the development of phylogenic evolutive transformations. Though immortality of the germ-plasm can be maintained without amphimixis, as in parthenogenetic eggs or by artificial parthogenesis in normal ova as de¬ monstrated by J. Loeb, in higher plants and ani¬ mals however, sexual conjugation is the normal process. Conjugation or fertilization means the reducing division of the chromosomes and the restoration of the normal bulk in the fertilized 110 ANCIENT HINDU MEDICINE ovum by equal contribution from both the parent cells. The stimulus which activates the fertiliza¬ tion is a chemotactic substance liberated by both the cells, but it seems that if the ovum is strong¬ er as in the final stage, there is a protoplasmic outgrowth towai’ds the spermatozoon. The proto¬ plasm contains nutritive materials for the embryo. Inberitance of heredity is complicated by two factors. Somatic characteristics are not transmit¬ ted—but only germinal. Yet the germinal mate¬ rials are influenced by somatic behaviour or func¬ tional uses. One might lose his limbs and his children would not be born without them. The Jews have been practising circumcision for the last four thousand years, yet the Jewish male ba¬ bies are boim with prepuce. But according to the experiments of Brown Sequard, if the sciatic nerve of a guinea pig be cut, the animal becomes epi¬ leptic and if mated, brings forth offsprings that are epileptic, though the sciatic nerve is there and has not been severed, but its functional disturbance has been fixed by heredity. Somatic cells undergo the evolutionary modi¬ fications of the functional exercise of an organ, by which its development is regulated. Tberfore the hereditary transmissions are of two kinds, ger¬ minal and epigenetic, i. e. the germplasmic ma- PATHOLOGY 111 1 terial becomes influenced and modified by the somatic behaviour, that is, by external conditions. And though the amphimixis takes place, the characteristics of both the parents are not equal¬ ly blendf'd in the offspring. It might receive the prepotent characteristics of one as in a cross be¬ tween a Negro with a White, pigment and hair etc., or the recessive charcteristics of the other. The sex of the offspring, according to some, depends on the maturity of the ovum, and if the fertilisa¬ tion takes place in the beginning, it is male and if at the terminating period of the catamenia, it is female. If the twins are not of the same sex, it is because two ova have been fecundated at two different periods. Consanguineous marriages produce evil effects, for heredity fixes and accen¬ tuates the weak characteristics of both the parents. If a blind man marries a blind woman, there is a possibility that the offsprings of the mating would have defective eye-sight, if they are not born to¬ tally blind, but if a blind man marries a woman ■ with good eye-sight, the negative characteristic of one would be counterbalanced by the other and children born of that marriage would not be affected probably in their eye-sight. Of course, the laws of heredity are not so simple. According to some biologists, one does not inherit more than 112 ANCIENT HINDU MEDICINE 50 p. c. from the parents, i. e. half from the father and the mothei’, each one of the parents cotributing about one-fourth, and each one of the grand-parents one-eighth and so on according to the geometric regressive proportion. But there may be also sudden reversion to the ancestral type and what is known as 'atavism' So no fixed rules of heredity can be determined. But it is cer¬ tain that the parents transmit to their offspring their psychic and bodily impressions. Bor germ- plasms must be certainly very sensitive to the somatic impressions and transformations. We have no definite proof that the pathogenic germs are directly transmitted with the germ- plasms. For if really the ovum or the spermato¬ zoon be infected, then they would be incapable of fertilization, growth and development, lacking impulsive momentum, vitality and nutrition, necessary for amphimixis and embryonic forma¬ tion. The frequent abortion that takes place in . the primary state of syphilis, is not probably due te the presence of treponema pallidum in the germplasras, but due to their low vitality and exhausted condition of nutrition or the inva¬ sion of the embryo by the pathogenic germs j through the placenta. Of course, there are ; cases known in medical history where the i PATHOLOGY lis offspring has been born with all the stigmata of syphilis, acquired from the father, while the mother has acquired immunity from its infection from the fetus through gradual elaboration of the antibodies, as a reaction of the organism. But it does not necessarily imply that the spermatozoon that fertilized the ovum and caused conception, had living syphilic germ in it, or it might have been simply saturated with attenuated syphilic virus—mild enough not to interfere with embryo¬ nic and fetal growth, yet a sufficient cause to bring forth immunizing reactions in the maternal or¬ ganism, witliout infecting her. In the matter of hereditary transmission of infectious diseases, the question is whether the germplasms can be car¬ riers of infective microbes ? In this the father is concerned only at the time of conception. Of course at the time of copulation and conception, the father’s state of health and condition, are reflected in the offspring. If the father is youthfnl, healthy and in happy mood, the offspring acquires a gay and cheerful disposition of mind. Xf on the contrary, the father is aged, or suffers from* dyspepsia, malaria or liver troubles, which naturally create a melancholy frame of mind, the children inherit the appearance of pre¬ mature senility. The children of youthful parents. 114 ANCIENT HINDU MEDICINE usually inherit a mobile and agile nervous system, as in youth nerves are very sensitive and responsive to impressions. The children of goaty, tubercular or hemophiliac parentage aquire a diathetic predisposition to these diseases. In an arthritic family often are seen manifesta¬ tions in different members of the family of gout, eczema, nervous affections, hepatic and renal lithiasis, diabetes and Bright’s disease. But there is no conclusive evidence that the germ- plasm is a carrier of infectious germ. But the mother’s influence is much more preponderant. The fetus lives and grows in the mother’s womb as a parasite for eight to ten months. Bor its nutrition it is dependent on the maternal circulatory system. Spermatozoon practically acts simply as a stimulant and gives the momentum to the ovum to start its ana;bolic evolutionary course. The child is really formed of the mother’s nutrition. So her psychical and physical life vitally reflects in the formation and growth of tlie fetus, during the long period of gestation. If she has any infectious disease, it is very unusual, if she does not transmit it to the fetus through the placenta. Nutritional {dosavala) disturbances are many and varied, and are known as metabolic PATHOLOGY 115 diseases. Nutrition is tlie function of every living cell, consisting in the taking in and .‘assimilation through fermentative changes whereby tissue is nourished and built and energy is liberated : its successive stages are known as digestion, absorption, assimilation, disassimilation and excretion. Anabolism is the assimilative synthetic process, while catabolism is the retrograde disassimilative metabolism.