From Butchers to Surgeons

Recently I read Dr. Lindsey Fitzharris' 2017 book called "The Butchering Art". It is not a book for the faint-hearted. In this book, she describes the way surgery was done in England till late 19th century and how two discoveries - anaesthesia and antisepsis, revolutionised it. Before those discoveries, surgery was the domain of butchers.

Reading this book raised a question in my mind about surgery in ancient India. More than two thousand years ago, ancient Ayurvedic surgeons were doing different surgeries including full-thickness skin grafts and plastic surgery operations such as rhinoplasty. I have already written a blog post about it. The question in my mind was, how did ancient Indian surgeons resolve the problems of anaesthesia and prevention of bacterial infections during their surgery?

This post is about the Fitzharris' book, as well as, about ideas of anaesthesia and asepsis from the ancient Indian text of Sushrut Samhita.

The Butchering Art

Fitzharris has a vivid way of writing. She brings alive the old and forgotten world of surgery, before the discovery of anaesthesia. Her writing is so graphic, that at times it made me feel a bit queasy. Her book starts on a December day of 1846 and describes one of the first surgeries done under the effect of Ether anaesthesia at the London University College hospital. The surgeon was Robert Liston and on that day, as usual the operation room was full of spectators, who had paid a ticket to watch the show.

It was a time when surgery was reserved for desperate and life-saving situations. Surgeons operated on conscious persons, who had to be held on their place by a group of strongmen. The lucky ones lost consciousness and were thus spared the pain of their bodies being opened and their bones being sawed off. The most important quality of surgeons was their speed in finishing the operation.

In the middle of the room was a wooden table stained with the telltale signs of past butcheries. Underneath it, the floor was strewn with sawdust to soak up the blood that would shortly issue from the severed limb. On most days, the screams of those struggling under the knife mingled discordantly with everyday noises drifting in from the street below: children laughing, people chatting, carriages rumbling by. ...At six feet two, Liston was eight inches taller than the average British male. He had built his reputation on brute force and speed at a time when both were crucial to the survival of the patient. Those who came to witness an operation might miss it if they looked away even for a moment. It was said of Liston by his colleagues that when he amputated, “the gleam of his knife was followed so instantaneously by the sound of sawing as to make the two actions appear almost simultaneous.” His left arm was reportedly so strong that he could use it as a tourniquet, while he wielded the knife in his right hand. This was a feat that required immense strength and dexterity, given that patients often struggled against the fear and agony of the surgeon’s assault. Liston could remove a leg in less than thirty seconds, and in order to keep both hands free, he often clasped the bloody knife between his teeth while working.

It was also the time when people had no understanding about bacteria and infections. If the patients did not get the infection from the dirty hands, blood-soaked aprons and instruments of the surgeons working in crowded halls where people were sneezing, coughing and talking, they got it from others who were admitted in the crowded hospitals. Mortality due to post-operative infections was very high.

In the 1840s, operative surgery was a filthy business fraught with hidden dangers. It was to be avoided at all costs. Due to the risks, many surgeons refused to operate altogether, choosing instead to limit their scope to the treatment of external ailments like skin conditions and superficial wounds. ... The surgeon, wearing a blood-encrusted apron, rarely washed his hands or his instruments and carried with him into the theatre the unmistakable smell of rotting flesh, which those in the profession cheerfully referred to as “good old hospital stink.” ...At a time when surgeons believed pus was a natural part of the healing process rather than a sinister sign of sepsis, most deaths were due to postoperative infections. Operating theatres were gateways to death. It was safer to have an operation at home than in a hospital, where mortality rates were three to five times higher than they were in domestic settings.

The book starts with discovery of anaesthesia and then quickly moves to its main subject - the ideas of antisepsis and their impact. It tells the story of Joseph Lister and his ideas about prevention of infections during surgery. During 1850s, Louis Pasteur in Paris had come up with the theory of invisible germs which were responsible for souring milk and fermenting grape-juice for making wine. In 1862 he boiled milk, which prevented souring of milk and proved his theory. Lister, who was passionate about microscopes, heard about Pasteur's work and felt that similar microscopic germs were responsible for causing infections in patients during surgery. In 1865 he developed his antiseptic solution based on carbolic acid, and showed that it was possible to reduce the post-operative mortality due to infections.

The book starts with discovery of anaesthesia and then quickly moves to its main subject - the ideas  of antisepsis and their impact. It tells the story of Joseph Lister and his ideas about prevention of infections during surgery. During 1850s, Louis Pasteur in Paris had come up with the theory of invisible germs which were responsible for souring milk and fermenting grape-juice for making wine. In 1862 he boiled milk, which prevented souring of milk and proved his theory. Lister, who was passionate about microscopes, heard about Pasteur's work and felt that similar microscopic germs were responsible for causing infections in patients during surgery. In 1865 he developed his antiseptic solution based on carbolic acid, and showed that it was possible to reduce the post-operative mortality due to infections.

The book is a fascinating read. Even if Lister proved the importance of antisepsis in preventing infections, for a long time, surgeons were sceptical about his ideas. Lister was helped by others who helped in spreading his ideas. He had inspired the maker of Listerine , which is now known as a mouth-wash but was initially developed as a disinfectant in operation theatres and used for cleaning wounds. He had also inspired Robert Wood Johnson , who had started Johnson & Johnson company to make sterilised dressings and sutures. It was not until 1877, when Armour Hansen saw the leprosy bacillus under a microscope, identified it as the cause of leprosy and firmly established the germs theory of infections.

Surgery in Ancient India

Sushruta is considered as the father of shalya-chikitsa (surgery) in Ayurveda. Various modern text books on surgery and plastic- surgery acknowledge that some of the techniques described in his treatise "Sushruta Samhita", such as that of full-thickness skin graft and rhinoplasty, have inspired them and are still used. When I read the Fitzharris' book, I wondered how did the ancient Indians develop those surgical skills without modern anaesthesia and antisepsis? To make a full-thickness skin graft or to do rhinoplasty, the surgeons need patients who are calm and can lie still for some time. It was not a work that a person with brute force could do by cutting away a part of the body while others held the patient. Such delicate surgeries would have been wasted if there were post-operative infections. So how did ancient Indian surgeons such as Sushruta do those surgeries?

I searched on internet and found an English translation of the first volume of Sushruta Samhita - it was translated from Sanskrit by an Ayurvedic doctor called Kaviraj Kunjalal Bhishagratna in 1907. In the introduction to the volume, he explained that this was not the original text of Samhita written by Sushruta, rather it was a commented version written by a person called Nagarjuna and was probably written around 3rd or 4th century BCE.

I found some answers regarding the questions of anaesthesia and use of anti-sepsis in surgery in the introduction of this text:

Verses about medicine, hygiene and surgery lie scattered through out the four Vedas. ... There were 5 groups [of healers] - Rogaharas (physicians), Shalyaharas (surgeons), Vishaharas (poison curers), Krityaharas (demon doctors) and Bhisag-Atharvans (magic doctors). (p. 13)[Sushruta] first classified all surgical operations into different kinds ... Aharya (extraction of solid bodies), Bhedya (excising), Chhedya (incising), Eshya (probing), Sivya (suturing), Vedhya (punturing), and Visravanya (evacuating liquids). ... Sushruta enjoins the sick room to be fumigated with the vapours of white mustard, bdellium, nimva leaves and resinous gums of Shala trees, which foreshadows the antiseptic (bacilli) theory of modern times. (p. 16)Amputations were freely made and medicated wines were given to patients as anaesthetics. ... In those old days, perhaps there were no hospitals to huddle patients together in the same room and thereby to create artificially septicemic poisons which are now so common and so fatal in the lying-in rooms. A newly built lying-in room in an open space filled with the rays of the sun and the heat of burning fire, and for each individual case the recommendation of a fresh bamboo chip for the section of the [umblical] cord are suggestions the value of which, the west has yet to learn from the east. (p. 19-20)

This brief description shows that in many ways, Ayurvedic surgeons had found solutions to the problems of sepsis and anaesthesia, which had plagued the surgeons in the UK till 19th century. Use of fumigation, sun light, keeping persons separated, using a new and clean cutting instrument, are all ideas that are known to promote antisepsis. Use of medicated wines for anaesthesia needs to be understood better to see which kind of medications were used. My knowledge of Sanskrit is limited but probably there would be more detailed information in the texts of Sushruta Samhita, which can give us more precise answers.

Those understandings of ancient healers like Sushruta were probably based on centuries of observations and experiments, though they had no real understanding of different kinds of bacteria and infectious agents as there were no microscopes to directly observe the micro-organisms. As the quote about different kinds of healers shows, the world of ancient healers was also a world of magic and demons, and thus it is likely that many of the old ideas would be expressed in "unscientific" terms.

Challenges of Understanding Ancient Wisdom

I think that at least some of such ancient understandings were common heritage of humanity and not just limited to India. In large parts of the world such ancient knowledge has been lost because many of the old traditions, along with old gods and their myths were discarded, before they could be codified, written down and preserved for posterity. It is easy to discredit ancient experiential knowledge because it is expressed in unscientific terms and is associated with old myths and ideas of supernatural. In India, in spite of invasions and mixing of cultures, fortunately there has been a civilisational continuity and thus the traditional knowledge in the old texts has been kept alive, and even today Ayurveda is a living tradition, followed by millions of persons.

Unfortunately, there is a tendency in India to diminish the importance of Ayurveda and its knowledge, as explained so eloquently in a recent article by Madhulika Banerjee, where she has written:

... my research has shown me several other worlds of Ayurveda — the world of the practising Ayurvedic doctor, the teachers in the scores of colleges and universities of Ayurveda and researchers in different institutes. These worlds are much bigger and deeper, beyond that of Patanjali, Dabur and Himalaya. That world is vibrant, has integrity and it is important that it be known, respected and valued. ... Under the influence of colonialism, we tethered the language, the institutions and the systems of Ayurvedic knowledge production to the margins of our learning and education. We closed many doors and windows of scientific practices within and around traditional medical systems. But in a trick of inversion, we say they do not follow the language and methodology of science.Despite Ayurvedic knowledge being rooted in a different philosophy, teachers have found ways of keeping up the process of adapting learning from the texts to contemporary education, fitting into modern classifications of anatomy, physiology and higher specialisations at a deeper level. They have both adapted to and adopted new knowledge, widening their horizons unhesitatingly, true to their tradition. Yet they have to face unhappy students, struggling with low self-esteem, under immense pressure to compromise their knowledge.... When two knowledge traditions have two completely different perspectives on body and disease, then why compete on the medicine and cure? And when parameters of treatment and expected outcomes are of different kinds, then how can the protocols of biomedicine be used for evaluating Ayurvedic medicines? Why can Ayurvedic manufacturing not focus on creating a different world of diagnosis, treatment and cure in keeping with its perspective, expanding the range of choices patients have?
I feel that the last part of Banerjee's quote above is fundamental - the value of the knowledge in Ayurveda can not be and should not be limited to evaluations by "scientists", it also needs to be understood and judged according to its own perspectives. For example, words like dosha, pitta, kapha and vayu, which are fundamental to ideas of Ayurveda, represent complex ideas that can not be translated into illness, bile, mucous and air and then laughed at, because they do not fit our understandings as modern doctors.

As explained in my blog-post on Ganesha story and ancient Ayurvedic techniques of plastic surgery operations on the nose (rhinoplasty), these were copied by British surgeons from India fairly recently (during the last part of 18th century). Yet, that does not stop "modern" doctors from calling Ayurveda as "alternative" medicine or worse, implying that these are inferior knowledge systems, if not outright quackery.

Conclusions

Linda Fitzharris' book on the old surgical art of butchering provides a glimpse into that time when getting a tooth extraction or having an abscess incised could lead to sepsis and death. It was also a time of unimaginable pain as persons were immobilised while the surgeons amputated their limbs or did similar operations. Discovery of anaesthetics and an understanding of spread of infections has led to the world today, where we have advances like laproscopic surgery, laser surgery and robots which can do delicate operations.

Forty years ago, when I had studied medicine, I had learned how to use ether anaesthesia for work in rural hospitals which did not have access to a Boyle's machine for anaesthesia. It was still the same technology which Fitzharris has described in her book as taking place in 1846. I don't know if anywhere anyone still uses that primitive approach to anaesthesia! So in way, I could directly identify with that world and feel the horrors of having brutal surgeries without anaesthesia.

It was also enlightening to read the book about Sushruta's techniques of surgery more than 2,500 years ago and appreciate how he and other ancient healers in India had developed an understanding about both anaesthesia and asepsis and were able to conduct and develop complex surgical techniques and to find that some of these techniques were copied in the west fairly recently (in 18th century).

I don't think that Ayurveda and ancient texts like Sushruta Samhita would all make sense according to the modern scientific understandings. They are texts of their times and they would have their parts of myths, stories and fantasies, interspersed with real experiential knowledge. As my brief exposition above shows, they did develop understandings which the modern medicine has developed only relatively recently. They do merit respectful analysis, even when we can't understand their meanings.

End-Note: The images used with this post are from the old anatomy theatre of Bologna in Italy and from an Ayurvedic college in Kerala, India.

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#bookreview #surgery #historyofsurgery #ayurvedicsurgery #ayurveda #lindseyfitzharris

God, Consciousness and Mathematics

In the 2 May 2020 issue of New Scientist there was an article about a new mathematical theory of consciousness. According to this theory "all kinds of inanimate matter could be conscious". To me this mathematical understanding of consciousness sounded very similar to the explanation of Brahman, the universal consciousness, in the Indian texts of Upanishads.

In 2018, I had written about different ways of understanding God in different religions and how the Upanishads define God in many ways, including as Brahman, the all pervading universal consciousness. This post can be seen as a continuation of that same argument and focuses on the article from New Scientist and its similarities with the ideas in Upanishads.

Here. There. Everywhere?

Michael Brooks' article is titled "Here. There. Everywhere?" He starts with the Integrated Information Theory (IIT) proposed by American neuroscientist Giulio Tononi in 2004. Then he explains the ideas of Johannes Kleiner in Munich and Sean Tull in Oxford, which start from Tononi's ideas and refine them. Tononi had proposed that consciousness was a characteristic of information-exchange and if we could measure that, then we could also measure consciousness. Kleiner and Tull have attempted "to identify the necessary mathematical ingredients of IIT, splitting them into three parts. First is the set of physical systems that encode the information. Next is the various manifestations or “spaces” of conscious experience. Finally, there are basic building blocks that relate these two: the “repertoires” of cause and effect." According to Brooks, the significance of this work is the following:

One consequence of this stimulus might be a reckoning for the notion, raised by IIT’s application to grid-shaped circuits, that inanimate matter can be conscious. Such a claim is typically dismissed out of hand, because it appears to be tantamount to “panpsychism”, a philosophical viewpoint that suggests consciousness is a fundamental property of all matter. But what if there is something in it?To be clear, no one is saying that fundamental particles have feelings. But panpsychists do argue that they may have some semblance of consciousness, however fragmentary, that could combine to generate the various levels of consciousness experienced by birds or chimpanzees or us. “Particles or other basic physical entities might have simple forms of consciousness that are fundamental, but complex human and animal consciousness would be constituted by or emergent from this" ...The idea that electrons could have some form of consciousness might be hard to swallow, but panpsychists argue that it provides the only plausible approach to solving the hard problem. They reason that, rather than trying to account for consciousness in terms of non-conscious elements, we should instead ask how rudimentary forms of consciousness might come together to give rise to the complex experiences we have.

Consciousness in Upanishads

Upanishads are ancient Hindu texts written in Sanskrit that often touch on the nature of reality. "Ishavasya" is one of the first Upanishads, dating back to different centuries before Christ. Its name - "Isha" (God) and Vasya (Lives in) - comes from its first line:

It means that God pervades everything, both animate and inanimate. It is similar to the hypothesis of the mathematical theory proposed by Kleiner and Tull, as the text equates 'God' with 'Consciousness'.

The Upanishads define different levels of consciousness including Turiya or absolute consciousness. Turiya is the state of pure being in which awareness is present but the experiences are not accompanied by any thoughts, and it can't be described in words. This philosophy of non-dualness, the unity of our personal consciousness with that of the universal consciousness is known as Advaita philosophy. To me these ideas sound remarkably similar to the considerations of Kleiner and Tull.

Some Hindu texts differentiate between Parmatma or the universal consciousness and Jeevatma, the individual consciousness, where Parmatma is the ocean while Jeevatma are the rivers. There are other explanations about different levels of individual consciousness inside animate and inanimate world, which can be seen as "rudimentary consciousness" in Brooks' article.

The concept of Brahman or the universal consciousness is deeply rooted in Hinduism. It is expressed in words like Brahmand or the universe and Brahmin, the one who has spiritual knowledge. It is also used in the Beej Mantra to be chanted or meditated upon during Yoga and meditation, such as Swam Ho (I am), Aham Brahma (I am the life force), Aham Shivam (I am the eternal truth). Thus, if Kleiner and Tull's theory is about universal consciousness, then according to the ideas of Upanishad, it is also a theory of God.

If we think of God as universal consciousness pervading every object and being of this universe, perhaps we will learn to respect the environment, the rivers and the mountains, the trees, insects, birds and animals, and all the human beings.

Conclusions

I think that with greater scientific and technological understandings of the world, the role of religions will change in our lives. Today, for many persons religion continues to have a fundamental role in differentiating and defining right and wrong, good and bad, permissible and prohibited. However, for many others, religion only has a spiritual significance because it allows us to give a deeper meaning to our lives, but it does not have a prescriptive role.

Questioning and refusing parts of our religious beliefs is essential for many of us. At the same time, our ideas about right and wrong are shaped more by concepts of human rights, equality of all human beings, and, love and respect for the nature. We can pick and choose aspects from different religions, which speak to our heart, but we are not bound by the walls separating them.

I think that this kind of questioning approach to our religions will become dominant in the coming decades and centuries. It is how I look at Hinduism. The phase of human culture dominated by prescriptive religions with rigid boundaries and commands is coming to an end. As humanity will become more self-aware and self-confident, it will focus on spiritual dimensions of religions, allowing each of us to have our own ideas of right and wrong. There may be inspirations to understand the world in our ancient texts and religious books, while there may be other parts that may not appeal to us. And, there need not be a gulf separating the ideas of God from those of mathematical theories.

Note: The images used in this post are from an exhibition of Indian artists held in Delhi in January 2020 and are by Rashmi Malhotra (a mathematician and an artist) and Prince Chand.

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A Creativity Megahub in Schio

Can 3D Printing provide good quality and better fitting prosthesis to persons with disabilities? I was looking for the answers to this question. The problem was that my knowledge about 3D printing was extremely limited and so I had to first understand about 3D printing.

A chance live-telecast on Facebook introduced to me to Megahub, an initiative promoting creativity and technological innovation, which helped me to learn the basics about 3D printing. I will write a separate post on the possible role of 3D printing in making of prosthesis. This post is an introduction to the Megahub initiative.

The Question About 3D Printing

3D printing was supposed to completely transform the world economy and our daily lives. All we needed was a 3D printer and we could have printed in our village everything that we needed, from medicine pills to shoes and clothes, in the designs and colours that we wanted, at almost no or very low cost.

However, after the initial hyperbolic predictions and enthusiasm for a few years, today we do not hear so much about it.

It was in this background that I was asked the question about the role of 3D printing for the production of prosthesis. A prosthesis serves to substitute a missing body-part - for example, an artificial arm for a person with arm-amputation.

My Chance Encounter with Megahub

I live in Schio, a little town in Italy, about 80 km north-west of Venice. About a year ago, I wanted to learn about post-processing of digital photographs. Searching on internet, I had found that Megahub organised such courses, so I had written to them and asked to inform me whenever they had such a course. After that email, nothing had happened and I had forgotten all about it.

Then, a few days ago, while I was trying to learn about 3D printing, I saw an email from Megahub, saying that they were going to do a live telecast about 3D printing on their Facebook page. When I read that email, it was almost the time for that telecast, so I immediately clicked the link. The telecast was an introduction about the technology. After the telecast, I checked the Megahub website and found that they had 3D printers and provided basic training about how to use them. I immediately signed up for an introductory session.

Learning About 3D Printers

Silvano, my teacher for 3D printers, is a great person - simple, unassuming and passionate about the 3D printing technology. I had a half-hour appointment with him, instead we talked for 2 hours and he patiently answered all my questions, explained everything with examples and showed me stuff about different kinds of 3D printers.

At the end of this session, now I have a much better overview and understanding about 3D printing and its possible role in making prosthesis. I will write a separate post about it.

Megahub Services

Megahub is one of the activities of a social cooperative of Schio called Samarcanda, which is active in different areas such as support for refugees, homeless persons and women in difficult situations. Their main office is on Via Paraiso, a few kilometres from the city centre. Part of their building is dedicated to Co-Working, where you can rent a working space and have an office with access to a meeting room, internet, printer and a kitchen.

Megahub is one of the activities in that building, and it has a separate space with an open-space layout which is subdivided into two kinds of areas - an area with machines for rent and learning; and, spaces which can be rented by start-ups and artisans.

The Learning & Machine Area of the Megahub includes labs for 3D printing, photography studio, electronic lab, laser cutting, CNC milling machine, welding, woodwork and carpentry. For each of these areas, you can join their training courses as well as, fix individual appointments for learning about the use of a specific machine. You can also book a machine and make things for your personal projects. For all of these, the costs are very reasonable since it is run by a social cooperative. The teachers are all young and passionate persons, who often go beyond their professional roles to try to help you.

The Start-Ups and Artisan spaces can be rented for a small amount by persons who are starting their professional careers. For example, presently one of the spaces is rented by a young ceramic designer while another has a couple making artistic mirrors. In one space, a guy has a green-house setup inside an old cold-drinks' box where he grows orchids - it is completely automated, so he can control it from his mobile phone.

I think that Megahub is a wonderful opportunity for young entrepreneurs to get a supporting environment, where they can work by themselves and yet be surrounded by others, who can become friends and supporters. They can try their ideas without risking a big amount of money in setting it up. They can learn from their failures without wrecking their savings and if they are successful, they can move to their own place. In this way, they also do not need to invest money in buying expensive machines, they can rent those existing in the megahub for the actual use by paying little amounts.

For more information about Megahub and to use its services, write an email to info@megahub.it or check its website: www.megahub.it

Conclusions

This post is my thank you note to Silvano and his colleagues, Martino and Pietro, for their generosity and helpfulness in teaching me all about 3D printing. I think that the basic idea of Megahub, as a supportive space to help persons to learn about technological innovations and to help young entrepreneurs in converting their ideas into reality, is a wonderful opportunity, which all cities should have if they are serious about nurturing young entrepreneurs.

The image above has Silvano showing a 3D printed guitar with colourful LED lights in it, that they had made in Megahub (the mask is inevitable since these are COVID-19 days!).

If I was not already so busy, I think that I would have loved to learn more about woodwork at Megahub and make wooden objects, which was one of my secret desires when I was young! Who knows, may be, I won't be always so busy and one day, find time to dedicate myself to learning it at Megahub.

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#megahub #megahubschio #workshops #workingspaces #3dprinting

A Liberian Story of Dung Beetles

The moment I read the title of the book "The Dung Beetles of Liberia", I knew that I wanted to read it. My links with Liberia go back to almost 25 years though I visited it for the first time only in 2018.

When I visit any country, I like to know its people and to understand their history and culture. However, though I have been to Liberia a few times, I have found it difficult to find a connection to the country's spirit, and in understanding its culture and history. Thus, the title of the book "The Dung Beetles of Liberia" immediately attracted me.

Dung Beetles

Dung beetles are found in the savanna regions in different countries of Africa and are not specific to Liberia. In my visits to Liberia, I have yet to come across these insects.

The tropical grasslands of Africa known as "Savanna" play a crucial role in ensuring the continent's bio-diversity. They are characterised by tall grass with a few scattered trees. According to National Geographic, the African savanna is the site of complex and inter-linked life-cycles:

"Healthy, well-balanced ecosystems are made up of multiple, interacting food chains, called food webs. Carnivores (lions, hyenas, leopards) feed on herbivores (impalas, warthogs, cattle) that consume producers (grasses, plant matter). Scavengers (hyenas, vultures) and decomposers/detritivores (bacteria, fungi, termites) break down organic matter, making it available to producers and completing the food cycle (web). Humans are part of the savanna community and often compete with other organisms for food and space."
According to Dr Frank Krell of the Natural History Museum in London, there are different varieties of dung beetles in Africa which play a fundamental role in ensuring the sustainability and survival of savanna by spreading the dung on the ground and by depositing it underneath hard soil so that it serves as fertiliser and nutrient for the savanna grass:

Dung is more than just waste, explains Krell; it is often full of seeds and burial by dung beetles may be crucial in the germination success of several plant species found on the savannah. Tunnelling and rolling species together not only distribute nutrients over the surface of the savannah but also dig it in for good measure, providing fertiliser at all levels of the soil profile to ensure a lush growth of vegetation during the rains. Around one tonne of nutrient-rich dung is deposited per hectare of the savannah each year, so there is more than enough to go round, especially once dug in by the enterprising insects.

Thus, though the dung beetles may be vital for the African biosphere, they are seen as dirty and the word "dung beetle" is used to denigrate. Therefore, it is important to specify that dung beetles are not "Liberian", they are present in different parts of Africa. In Meier's book, we are introduced to them in the first chapter, when Ken, a young American pilot flying an Africa Air Service (AAS) plane, has to make an emergency landing in a field near a nuns' mission because he has diarrhoea. Hidden from the nuns among the tall grass, he is busy shitting when he finds the dung beetles trying to crawl on his legs.

"Leaving the engine idling with the prop turning over slowly, I bailed out of the cabin. I ran to the bush, which was mostly grass and weeds about chest high, and, with only moments to spare, relieved myself. While this relief was occurring, I heard the distinctive wuush, wuush, wuush of dung beetles crawling through the grass. I had been told that they could hear a mouse break wind from five miles away and could follow the scent. With my pants around my ankles and the sun beating down on my head, I started a little hippy hop, hippy hop movement to keep away from them."
Apart from the first chapter, the dung beetles do not make further appearances in the book, at least not in the insect form. The dung beetles in the title of the book, make one think that it is an entomology book. When I started reading it, I thought that it was a light-hearted story of an expatriate in Africa and his struggles with local fauna and flora. Instead, the book refers to his encounters with other kinds of dung beetles, many of whom are also expatriates.

Other Dung Beetles in Liberia

Some dung beetles eat the shit, others live in it. Meier's Liberia is about 7 years in the life of Ken Verrier starting from 1961, while he is trying to escape from his guilt at his brother's death. The country seems to be full of bipedal kind of dung beetles - from a corrupt system oiled by "dash" and ex-slave Americo-Liberians living in the replicas of American plantation houses where they were slaves; from the Nazi pilots refugees from Germany on their way to South America to the Israeli spies. As the next excerpt shows, it seems that in the 1960s, Liberia was one of the richest economies in Africa and had different groups of expats.

A lot of wealth was pouring into the country, mostly from international corporations. The national transportation system was still largely underdeveloped. Most of the roads had been built by international mining, timber, and rubber companies. These roads served the companies as well as the people of Liberia and were not paved. During the wet season they often became impassable. There was one national airline, Liberian National Airways, but it flew only to a few nearby destinations outside of Liberia.

I was surprised to read about the Nazi pilots hiding in Liberia, I had never heard of it before. The description of their adoration for Hitler's ideology, makes for a disgusting and yet fascinating reading, in some ways reminding me of the Tarantino film "Inglorius Bastards". For example, check the description below of an evening at a place called Heinz & Maria in Monrovia:

I noticed that the volume of voices had gotten much louder. Beer was flowing more freely and the pilots started singing old beer hall songs, then Luftwaffe fight songs. One of the pilots stood up, swayed several times, took a couple of gulps of beer, and started singing the German national anthem. Everyone joined in, including Ana. When that was finished a pilot, whose name was Willy, climbed onto the bar, rolled up his right shirt sleeve to reveal a tattoo of a red swastika on his upper arm with “Deutschland Für Immer” inscribed beneath it. He started goose-stepping up and down the bar giving the Nazi stiff-arm salute and shouting, “Leben sie Langa, Liebe sie Langa, Fur Gott, Fuehrer und Vaterland, Machen Deutchland Wieder Groß!”The pilots cheered and toasted Willy with mugs of beer and then began a rhythmic pounding of their feet on the floor while shouting, “Ein Reich! Ein volk! Ein Füehrer! Deutschland für immer! Ja, ja!”

Liberia Today

Meier's book is about Liberia and Africa of 1960s and it looks at the country from a white American expatriate's eyes. Apart from the Germans and persons from international corporations involved in diamond mines, it touches on two other groups of expatriates - missionaries and Lebanese businessmen.

The Liberia that I have known over the past couple of years is very different and yet similar to the one described in the book. It has been devastated by decades of an incredibly brutal and prolonged civil war, followed by the deadly Ebola epidemic. During my visits in the areas affected by the civil war, I have heard nightmarish stories of violence by persons who were children at that time and saw their families raped and hacked to death in front of them. I have also talked to some who were forced to become child soldiers and who still carry the scars of their experiences on their souls.

I have heard that after the end of the civil war in 2003, for a decade Liberia was full of European NGOs and U.N. forces who had come here following the scent of reconstruction money and emergency aid programmes. They are all mostly gone now after the Ebola scare in 2014, when the GDP growth had plunged from more than 8% to less than zero. Though the Ebola epidemic was controlled in 2016, its shadow still seems to dog the country. The corruption mentioned in Meier's book still seems omnipresent while the violence seems to be hidden just below the surface of ordinary daily life, threatening to erupt now and then in the protests and witch-hunts, just like it does in the book during the part about President Tubman:

Tubman decided to make an example of them, so he announced there would be a Justice Day. And when that day came, justice was to be held in the football stadium. It was done at night for full effect. You know, like the Nazis used to do at Nuremburg with their torches and vertical lights. Herr Speer called it the ice palace.“It was like a sports affair. Vendors were selling cotton candy, beer, shit like that. And just at the right moment, he got up into the speaker’s stand and called for the criminals to be brought out. The same white Mercedes was driven out onto center field and two policemen got out. They opened the rear door and dragged out three guys who were handcuffed and chained together. Then Tubman made this long speech in the style of der Fuehrer about how he was going to put an end to crime and, after a timed pause, he extended both arms and said, ‘Now let justice be done,’ and the crowd went wild.”The cops dragged the three guys around to the rear of the car, opened the trunk and threw them in, and slammed the trunk lid down. A pickup truck drove out to the scene and the cops started offloading five-gallon cans of petrol. They must have dumped fifty gallons of the stuff in and on the car. Tubman gave the signal by suddenly lowering his arms, and the cops lit the car off. At that point the crowd let out a scream that made what’s left of my hair stand on end. I’ve never heard anything like it. It was like ten thousand people at the height of supreme ecstasy.

The book ends with a cliché image of Africa, a Guinea worm - Ken takes out a male worm from his knee, wrapping it around a match-stick and he realises that the demons chasing his soul are gone and it is time for him to go back to his home in the USA.

Looking for the Real Liberia

While visiting Liberia, I have felt as if I am visiting a country without a history. Which may be true in a way because it was created in 17th century by the freed slaves coming back from America. Their cultures and histories had been snatched away from them when they or their fathers had been captured and taken away in the slave-ships. They were brought back and had been implanted in the midst of local tribes. They had become the Americo-Liberians, subjugating the local tribes exactly as they themselves had been subjugated.

Given this history as the seed of their nation, it is no wonder that Liberians had to struggle to find a unity in their nationhood. It is quite likely that the process of assimilation is not yet complete and continues to erupt every now and then, in the lack of trust between its people.

Over the past five hundred years, the empire-builders and exploiters from north Africa and Europe have crushed and cancelled any sense of value the different African people had regarding their own cultures and beliefs. Religious proselytisation by Islamic and Christian preachers have brought new cultural values to replace the old beliefs. Except may be for Yoruba people in Nigeria, none of the civilisational cultures of Africa have survived this onslaught. Compared to the rest of Africa, the cultural challenges which Liberia faced were probably even worse and thus their transition to the modern nation state has had its ups and downs.

Conclusions

Today's Liberia is changing. There are no longer any big groups of German expats here. The Lebanese are still there but over the past couple of years, many of them have left the country. Instead there are groups of Indians, Chinese, Ghanaians and Nigerians who dominate the country's commerce. Thanks to the Chinese, there is a nice road from Monrovia to Ganta, though travel to rest of the country continues to be back-breakingly difficult, especially in the rainy season.

For me Meier's book was an opportunity to take a look at Liberia's recent history. I enjoyed it but in the end I feel that it is only a very superficial glimpse and has left me craving for more. I wish a writer like James Michner could have written a book about Liberia (like his books on Alaska, Hawa'i and Caribbean)!

Probably most African nations would also need such writers, who can combine the mythical with historical and civilizational ethos and with an ambitious vision to unearth their people's histories. Probably Nigerians and Ghanians have had more success in this, but I may be biased in the favour of anglophone world while similar voices exist in other areas of the continent,about which I am not aware.

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Surgery in Ancient India & Ganesha

Ganesha, the anthropomorphic divinity with the elephant's head, is one of the most loved God-figures in Hinduism. Some persons have claimed that the Ganesha story is a sign of knowledge about advanced surgical skills in ancient India and that those ancient surgeons knew how to transplant an animal head on a human body. While such claims are laughable, I do believe that there can be some links between the myth of Ganesha and the knowledge of surgery in ancient India.

This post is about surgery in ancient India and how it could have given birth to the Ganesha myth.

The Ganesha Story

I love the figure of Ganesha. For me, it symbolises the omnipresent links between humans and different aspects of nature, which permeate different aspects of Hinduism. They teach us to look with respect at every aspect of nature - from the microscopic bacteria and ants to animals and plants, and even the snow covered mountains. If you have seen individuals in India offering flour or grains to ants and snakes and monks going around with a mask for their mouths, you can understand the vitality of this link between Indic religions and nature.

In the Indian mythology, Ganesha is the son of Shiva and Parvati, born while his father is away. Many years later, one day Shiva comes back home and is stopped by Ganesha, who does not know him and is guarding the door because his mother is taking bath. Angry, Shiva cuts his head. Later when he realises his mistake, it is too late, some animal has eaten his son's head. So Shiva sends his men to look for another head, and his men bring back the head of a baby elephant which is put on the boy's torso. This is how Ganesha's elephant head is explained in the mythology.

Transplanting An Animal Head

Some persons take the Ganesha story literally and believe that ancient Indians knew how to transplant an animal head on that of a human being. Even if it was possible to sew and transplant an animal head on a human body, and even if it was possible to avoid the inter-species transplant rejection, no real elephant's head, not even a baby elephant head, can fit the human body, unless we are talking of elephant-sized giant men from Gulliver's Travels. Thus, this story is only a story.

However, ancient Indians did develop surgical skills almost 2000 years ago, which were probably unique in the world at that time. Some of those techniques are still used in modern surgery. I wonder if the story of one such surgical operation could have given birth to the Ganesha myth. Let me explain.

Surgery in Ancient India

Mentions of surgery are found from Rigveda onwards in different texts of Hinduism and some of the well known ancient surgeons mentioned in these texts include Ashwini Kumaras, Chavana, Dhanvantari, Atereya Agnivesh and Sushruta. Sushruta from 600 BCE is called the father of Indian surgery, and his book known as Sushruta Samhita contains indications regarding cosmetic, plastic, and dental surgery ("Sandhan Karma").

Dr. Vibha Singh in an article published in the Journal of Maxillofacial Surgery in 2017 had written about it:

The ancient surgical science was known as Shalya Tantra. Shalya means broken arrow or a sharp part of a weapon and Tantra means maneuver. Shalya Tantra embraces all processes, aiming at the removal of factors responsible for producing pain or misery to the body or mind. Since warfare was common then, the injuries sustained led to the development of surgery as refined scientific skill ...Complicated surgeries such as cesarean, cataract, artificial limb, fractures, urinary stones plastic surgery, and procedures including per- and post-operative treatment along with complications written in Sushrutaa Samhita, which is considered to be a part of Atharva Veda, are surprisingly applicable even in the present time ...Even today, rhinoplasty described by Shushruta in 600 BC is referred to as the Indian flap and he is known as the originator of plastic surgery. Besides trauma involving general surgery, Sushruta gives an in-depth account and a description of the treatment of 12 varieties of fracture and six types of dislocation. This continues to spellbind orthopedic surgeons even today. He mentions the principles of traction, manipulation, apposition, stabilization, and postoperative physiotherapy ...

Knowledge about surgery travelled from India to the Arab World in the 8th CE and then to Europe. Prof. Thamburaj in his book Textbook of Contemporary Neurosurgery wrote that Sushruta Samhita was translated into Arabic as 'Kitab Shah Shun al–Hindi' and 'Kitab–I–Susurud'. There were Latin and German translations of this text in early 19th century but I think that there must have other translations of this text in the past and the knowledge about the Indian techniques had reached Europe much earlier.

Dr Frank McDowell in his 1977 book on Plastic Surgery had written: "Through all of Sushruta's flowery language, incantations and irrelevancies, there shines the unmistakable picture of a great surgeon. Undaunted by his failures and unimpressed by his successes, he sought the truth unceasingly and passed it on to those who followed. He attacked diseases and deformities definatively, with reasoned and logical methods. When the path did not exist, he made one."

The Skin Grafting Technique from India

Skin grafts are needed when the skin is destroyed, such as in burn and crush injuries. Broadly, there are two kinds of skin grafts - a partial skin graft and a full skin graft. The full skin grafts were described in Sushruta Samhita.

When wounds are big or deeper, and a thin strip of skin is not enough, we need a graft with the full depth of the skin and underlying tissues including blood vessels and nerves. For this, the surgeons cut a piece of full skin tissue from three sides, usually from abdomen, arms or thighs, while making sure that it remains attached on the 4th side to the original part of the body, from where it can continue to receive blood. This skin flap is used to cover the wound. This means, the surgeon needs to bring together the wound to the body part which is going to donate the skin, and they need to stay together for some weeks, till the grafted skin starts getting blood from the underlying tissues. Once the grafted skin is well fixed to the new area, the flap can be cut at the base and two parts can be separated.

The Origins of Ganesha Myth

Is it possible that the Ganesha myth started from a surgery in ancient India? Lets suppose that there was a young boy who was a priest at a Shiva or Shakti temple and he was attacked by someone who wanted to loot the temple. He was able to protect the temple but his nose was cut during the fight. He was operated by a surgeon who took a full skin flap from his upper arm and used it to construct a nose for him. After the operation, he was forced to keep his arm close to his face with his forearm hanging in front of his face like an elephant's trunk for a few weeks or months. Suppose, someone called him the boy with the elephant's head and over time, it gave rise to the Ganesha story?

Hinudism has a strong traditions of an oral culture, where old stories are made into songs, adapted to the local context and passed across generations. Over centuries, such a story could have become the Ganesha's mythical story and the sages incorporated that story in a sacred book, explaining him to be Shiva and Parvati's son.

Conclusions

Hinduism is a living tradition that has roots going back to antiquity. This living tradition is incredibly complex, where each story has innumerable versions, and some of them can be contradictory. Over centuries, stories which can have deep metaphorical meanings become widespread and find a place in one of its sacred texts.

My considerations about the origins of the Ganesha story are just speculations and can't be taken as truth. They build a story around the surgical skills about skin-grafting in ancient India. There is no way to prove this story and any way, that is not the purpose of this post.

Additional notes about this surgery in India are given below:  I think that this additional information is important because it shows that Ayurvedic operations based on the ancient techniques described in old books of Sushruta Samhita and Charaka Samhita, were being practiced in India in 18th century and were taken to west much more recently than has been claimed.

Additional Notes, 11 August 2020 (From @trueindologyorg on Instagram):

The above is the picture of world's first known modern plastic surgery. It is also the picture of world's first known modern nose job. It was performed by a traditional Indian surgeon named Kumar. The person in this picture was known as Cowasji. He was a Maratha bullock driver. He had been imprisoned by Tipu Sultan and his nose was cut off in prison. His nose was later restored by a traditional Surgeon named Kumar using "ancient Indian methods" in 1794 CE.

A Britisher named Lucas observed in action the traditional Indian surgery of Cowasji and documented every detail of this operation. This picture was a British portrait of Cowasji AFTER Rhinoplasty (c. 1795 CE). At that time, the Europeans lacked the scientific knowledge and expertise needed to perform plastic surgery. They were greatly intrigued by this method and found it was commonly performed in India. They also noted how Susruta Samhita described this procedure of Rhinoplasty in detail. These details were then accessed by a scientist named Joseph Constantine Carpue. Using these techniques, he performed world's "first" modern Rhinoplasty 20 years later.

Joseph Constantine Carpue is widely known as the father of Plastic Surgery. But in his book "An account of two successful operations" , he acknowledges that it was performed by "Indians from time immemorial". He learnt it through his friends who "copied from Hindoo practitioners" in his own words. Nasal reconstructions had been practiced as a relatively routine procedure in India for centuries. The procedures are described in two well-known early Indian medical works like the Suśruta Samhitā. By the nineteenth century, the technique had been handed down through families.

Traditional Indian sources recommend that Kumbhakaras (potters) perform the surgery owing to their skill. They performed it till 18th century. Source: "An account of two successful operations " by Joseph Constantine Carpue. Image source: https://blogs.bl.uk/science/2016/10/britains- first-nose-job.html

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#surgery #medicine #ayurveda #ancientindia #ganesha #hinduism

Our Black Gods

Some of the most popular deities of Hinduism are dark-skinned. Considering the Indian obsession with fair skins, I had often wondered, how did that come about and why did ancient Hindus imagined their Gods to be dark-skinned? I have thought a lot about it and I have not yet found any convincing explanation about it.

Over the past couple of centuries, it seems that we have started a whitening process of our dark-skinned Gods, much like our craze for the whitening creams. If not fair, they are shown as light blue or green coloured figures, as the figure of lord Ram in the picture above. In plays and films, light-skinned actors are taken to play their roles.

For the past 10 days we are closed in our homes because of the Corona virus epidemic. Schio, the tiny town at the foothills of Alps mountains in the north-east of Italy where we live, has been largely spared from this epidemic so far. Thus, I have a lot of time to think and write for my blog! This was how I started to think about the popular Gods of Hinduism and ask myself, why are they shown as dark-skinned?

Dominant Narratives

For the past couple of centuries, the dominant narrative about ancient Indians and Hindus in India has been that of lighter-skinned Aryans, who had come from central or west Asia, and who pushed the darker skinned original inhabitants of India to the south or in the forests. Some believe that they were invaders, who had destroyed the Indus Valley civilisation. However, that invasion theory is not considered now because no evidence had been found of widespread violence and war in the archaeological explorations in the Indus Valley. 

It sounds like a linear and clear explanation, and seems quite plausible. However, I find it difficult to place the black-skinned Gods of Hinduism in this narrative.

Why Did Aryans Choose Black Gods?

The question which I ask is this - if Vedic Hinduism was brought by light-skinned Aryans, who had come to dominate India and had pushed many indigenous groups to the margins of the societies, why did they choose so many dark-skinned Gods as their principle deities?

Two of the most popular deities of Hinduism - Ram and Krishna, both known as incarnations of Vishnu, are described as dark-skinned. Krishna's name, itself means black/dark. On the other hand, most of their consorts, the female deities, are described as fair skinned, except for Kali, one of the female deities associated with Shiva.

Possible Explanations

According to a Hindi article I found on the internet, the black colour of Hindu deities was a philosophical choice because the black colour is formed by mixing of all the colours and thus it has all shades of the Prakriti (nature) in itself. However, I find it difficult to accept this explanation, because it seems like a more cerebral answer and does not say anything about the ideas and attitudes of the common persons, who needed to pray to those deities.

Vedic culture has been characterised as a Patriarchal Society - why did a Patriarchal Society choose low-in-hierarchy black-skinned figures as their male deities? One explanation can be that ancient Indians who believed in Vedic culture were themselves dark-skinned persons (or were a mixed group, somewhat like today's Indians, and dark-skinned persons among them had high-prestige roles) and that is why they preferred dark-skinned deities. If we accept this idea, what does that mean for the Aryan-Dravidian theories, as well as, for the caste theories?

Another explanation can be that the ancient Vedic Indians believed in the mother-goddess and female deities, while the dark-skinned male deities belonged to Indus Valley people and indigenous people of the forests. When Aryans arrived and gradually assimilated with pre-existing Indian groups, they took over the pre-existing male deities. Thus, the dark-skinned deities came to Hinduism from the indigenous people of India, as the two groups assimilated and inter-mixed their deities.

Yet, another explanation can be that the principle deities of Hinduism arose as representations of the natural forces, and thus deities representing dark forces such as clouds and thunder, took on dark colours. But this logic does not seem to apply to the figures of Ram and Krishna.

Or, perhaps, there are different explanations for each of them and it is by coincidence that we ended up with many dark-skinned deities? It is also possible that when Aryans imagined their Gods in anthropomorphic forms, they did not imagine them to be similar to themselves, but as dark-skinned "others"? Or, can it be that the Aryan-Dravidian narrative is not so linear as has been implied?

Can you think of any other explanation about the dark-skinned deities of Hinduism?

Whitening of the Dark Gods

I am not sure when exactly did we start whitening our deities. One way can be to look at the Hindu deities in countries like Indonesia and Vietnam. Hinduism is supposed to have travelled to places like Bali in Indonesia and Champa in Vietnam in first-second century CE. Do they have any dark-skinned Hindu deities in these countries discovered in the archaeological excavations? If yes, that will help us in dating the choice of dark-skinned deities.

We can also look at the probable dates when our epics like Ramayan were written, because Ramayan describes Ram and his youngest brother Shatrughan as dark-skinned, while the two other brothers, Laxman and Bharat, are described as fair-skinned. However, the claims about probable dating of Ramayan are very variable.

According to David Kinsley, "The Vamana Purana has a different version of Kali's relationship with Parvati. When Shiva addresses Parvati as Kali, "the dark blue one," she is greatly offended. Parvati performs austerities to lose her dark complexion and becomes Gauri, the golden one. Her dark sheath becomes Kausiki, who while enraged, creates Kali."

Vamana Purana is a late text, it has been dated to 9-11th century. Thus, this could mean that by 9-11th centuries, Hindus had started whitening its deities or at least to make them seem less dark? Or perhaps the Kali-Parvati story has other origins and looking for explanations based on a predilection for fair skins is misplaced and over-simplification of this issue.

In the second half of 19th century, Raja Ravi Varma popularised the Indian deities through his calendar art, where all the dark-skinned deities were shown either in light blue or fair-skinned. Those calendars had a huge influence and continue to affect how we imagine our Gods even today.

Devdutt Pattnaik in his article - Black Gods and White Gods, had written about this Indian fascination for the fair skins, with the following words:

And so we had gods who were always pink, demons who were always brown and dark gods who were always blue. Indra, Brahma and Durga were pink, Asuras and Rakshasas were brown. Vishnu, Ram and Krishna were blue. Somehow, an unnaturally blue Krishna was preferred over a naturally dark Krishna. ‘Because blue is the color of the sky, of ether, of divinity,’ we were told. No one dared point out that Krishna and Shyam were both proper nouns and common nouns which referred to gods as well as the color black. We forgot to refer to traditional Patta chitras in Orissa where Krishna and Vishnu are always shown using black paint while Balarama and Shiva are always shown using white. When making Krishna blue, we forgot all folk songs, even Hindi film songs, where there is constant reference to Krishna’s dark complexion.

Shiva is the only one, who is described as Neelkanth, the one with the blue throat, because he had drunk the poison threatening to destroy the humanity. Thus, he has been imagined as a blue coloured God. In the past few years, while thinking of increasing pollution and the climate crisis, I have often thought of the blue-throated Shiva as a metaphor and the need for finding a way of "collecting" all the pollution-poison and saving the earth. At the same time, I have wondered, what kind of poisons could have been there in the environment in the antiquity which had necessitated Shiva's intervention, and the origins of this story? Can this mythological story be linked to a big volcano eruption or a meteorite impact which had covered the skies with dust or ash for months or years?

In the 20th century, the process of whitening of the dark skins of our Gods became even more prevalent. Now, Krishna and Ram are usually shown as light blue or green coloured, or sometimes even fair-skinned. In films and TV serials, often light-skinned persons are chosen to play the role of these deities. This has been coupled with an obsessive search for lightening the skin colour through different skin creams among the general population. India is one of the biggest markets in the world for such creams and its TV and magazines are full of advertisements for selling such products.

In 2017-18, Bhardwaj Sundar and Naresh Nil had launched a campaign to create awareness about this change by using dark skinned models to portray Indian gods and goddesses to recreate the paintings of Raja Ravi Roy. The series of images was named ‘Dark Is Divine’ and they had created 7 portraits, each featuring a different deity. The image above shows a dark-skinned Laxmi from this campaign. I don't know if this image makes you feel strange like it does to me - I think that it forces us to reflect on our colour-biases.

Conclusions

For a long time, I have wondered about the origin of dark-skinned deities of Hinduism, because they do not seem to fit in with the Indian fascination for the fair-skins. In fact, black-skin is seen almost as a synonym of ugly and inferior by many persons.

The dark-skinned deities also seem illogical in the context of dominant narratives of fair-skinned Aryans who came to India and brought the seeds of Vedic Hinduism with them. They also seem illogical in the context of caste sub-divisions, which were supposed to place dark-skinned persons in the lowest groups of the hierarchy.

Perhaps, the understanding of logic and rationale is not good for understanding Hinduism - because the roots of ancient Indian philosophy and its ways of understanding and interpreting the world are very different from the Western systems of logic. Thus, perhaps my questions about the dark-skinned Gods of Hinduism are wrong and need to be rephrased?

If you have some other ideas about this theme, do let me know!

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Influence of Parasites on Behaviour

Sometimes we think that we have understood something, then scientists comes up with new insights, which force us to rethink about that understanding. For example, over the past decade, insights about the gut bacteria which constitute our microbiome and might shape different aspects of our lives, from obesity to depression, have opened a new areas of scientific enquiry. The discovery of a "new body organ", the interstitial space, is another emerging area of research and understanding, which might have surprises waiting for us. Kathleen McAuliffe's book about parasites and how they might affect human behaviour relates partly to the role of gut bacteria, but has a wider scope. It did manage to force me to reflect about issues that I had not thought before.

About 50 years ago, when I had joined medical college in India, I used to think that almost all the things that could have have been discovered about human body and diseases had already been discovered. I imagined that technology might help us improve some things, like diagnosing some difficult to diagnose conditions, but I had no idea that in these 50 years scientific knowledge about some aspects of human body, such as genetics, was going to change so drastically. That is why I love reading books which give an understanding about human body and its influence on the changing practice of medicine.

McAuliff's book has a strange title, "This is Your Brain On Parasites", which does not sound very interesting, but its subtitle explains it better - "How tiny creatures manipulate our behaviour and shape society". This post is about this book, which I would divide into 2 parts - the first part is about different parasites which infest worms and insects and, change their behaviour; the second part is about humans. The latter is more speculative, it wonders how parasites and fear of illness might be influencing our sense of disgust and our behaviour towards "outsiders".

Parasites in Other Life Forms

In the first part of the book, McAuliff talks about researchers who have spent all their lives following the life cycle of a parasite and the surprising things they have discovered. McAuliff explains that searching for these stories was what led her to writing this book:The impetus for this book was a discovery on the Internet. I’m a science journalist and one day while foraging for interesting topics to write about I stumbled across information about a single-celled parasite that targets the brains of rats. By tinkering with the rodent’s neural circuits—exactly how is still a matter of fervid study — the invader transforms the animal’s deep innate fear of cats into an attraction, thus luring it straight into the jaws of its chief predator. This is a felicitous outcome not only for the cat but also, I was stunned to learn, for the parasite. It turns out the feline gut is exactly where the organism needs to be to complete the next stage of its reproductive cycle ... As I continued reading, more surprising news greeted me: The microscopic organism is a common inhabitant of the human brain because cats can transmit it to us when we come in contact with their feces. Perhaps the parasite was meddling with our brains too, speculated a Stanford neuroscientist associated with the research.
The stories of parasites entering the bodies of their hosts and changing their behaviour to suit their own desires, are like the stories of ghouls and spirits taking over and turning living beings into zombies - fascinating and frightening. At the same time, this part of the book explains the different obstacles these scientists had to overcome in their single-minded passion about one worm or one insect, over periods lasting decades. It is a pity that most of their names remain in obscurity.

For example, there is the story of the scientist Janice Moore who got interested in the life-cycle of a tapeworm and studied how it passes part of its beginning life in the ants and then it makes the ants go crazy, so that they climb on the the tip of grass and wriggled in such a way to attract the sheep to come and eat those grass-blades. Thus the worm reaches the brain of the sheep, needed for the next phase of its life-cycle.

From crazy fishes flipping on their belly on the surface of water so that they were eaten by some cranes to cockroaches meekly following the wasps to their nests so that wasp could deposit its eggs on its tummy and when wasp-babies come out they could have fresh cockroach meat, the stories are incredibly interesting and morbid.

They also made me think about some flamboyant persons with attention-seeking behaviours and wonder if they might have some worms in their brains? We do have some popular ways of sayings in Hindi in India, such as "Iske dimaag mein keeda laga hai" (His/her brain has got a worm), which sounds very similar to these stories.

Parasites and Human Behaviour

In this part of the book, McAuliff focuses on human psycho-pathology. These are more of hypothesis rather than scientific studies, about how the bacteria living in our bodies might be influencing our behaviour (though these bacteria are not really parasites, rather these are symbiotic organisms, as they get nutrition from us but they also provide benefits to us such as vitamins).

Cruickshank, in her review of McAuliff's book in New Scientist has critiqued this part:

Oblivious, McAuliffe skips into attention-grabbing territory armed with only the flimsiest of evidence. She claims, for example, that infection makes us more sociable and sexually voracious as the parasite seeks to infect others. This is based on a study that followed people given a flu shot (it being unethical to give people actual influenza). The subjects’ increased sociability might have been due to viral manipulation, but for my money it’s more likely they were simply feeling confident about being protected from infection.

McAuliff may not have evidence for most of the things she writes in this part of the book, but in terms of human psycho-pathology, they do raise some interesting hypothesis.

Conclusions

Studying the influence of bacteria and parasites on human behaviour is a field in expansion and new discoveries are already being made, which have many practical implications. For example, understanding how the malaria parasite influences mosquito behaviour and how it changes human physiology, can help us in diagnosing it and fighting against an infection which kills hundreds of thousands of persons each year. Some months ago, I had seen a TED video by James Logan about how dogs may be able to identify persons with malaria parasite, because the parasite makes our bodies secrete a chemical in our sweat, which attracts uninfected mosquitoes to come and bite us, and dogs can be trained to identify the persons with this chemical in their sweat.

I found this book hugely interesting and read it in a span of a few days, almost like a thriller. It is true that in terms of influence of micro-organisms and parasites on human behaviour, this book is speculative. However, it might influence young researchers to study these areas and see if such infections/infestations can be implicated in the causation of conditions which are yet not properly understood, like schizophrenia and Alzheimer disease.

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