Anthropometric Concept of Ayurveda with Special Reference to Pain Endurance (An Old and Rare Book)

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The problem of objective study of Anthropometry (anga pratyaiga-mana) mentioned in the three great compendia of Ayurveda has not been solved satisfactorily till now. The present work "Anthropometric concept of Ayurveda with special reference to Pain Endurance" by Dr. Bhagwat Ram is a fulfilment of that long-awaited need. It is a pioneer work in the field of Anthropometry based on a scientific study done on more than six hundred cases. A statistical evaluation of this study has made it authentic, comprehensive, laudable and excellent work after Sheldon. The scientific study of Pain- endurance, carried on the subjects; opens a new vista to the modern researchers of Ayurveda. It is noteworthy that Dr. Bhagwat Ram has evolved a specially designed instrument to measure the pain endurance and he has been successful in the measuring the parts of the body through Swangnla Pramana.

This will pave the path for the proper diagnosis of the diseases and treatment accordingly.

Dr. Bhagwat Ram has very successfully equated somatic constitution termed by Sheldon as Ectomorphs, Endomorphs Mesomorphs with the Vatic, Pattic and slesmic Prakrities of Ayurveda respectively. It is an indirect measurement of Tridosa on scientific line.

It is a painstaking, herculean, exhaustive and fascinating study and I congratulate the author on this acheivement.

I am sanguine that present work will be greatly honoured by the scientific world in general and admired by the fundamentalists of modern medical researchers in particular. It is hoped that such type of long-neglected study will be started in postgraduate Ayurvedic institutions to exhibit the eternal truth of Ayurveda.

From the very begining, in every system of the Medical Science, Anthropometry has been a subject of study. Physicians of ancient India were probably the first to classify human constitution with a view to preserve health and for proper diagnosis of diseases. In fact, the entire preventive medicine the specific constitutional predisposition for diseases and the description of prognosis based on constitunal classification are based on the fundamental Ayurvedic theory of "Tridosa". The ulimate object of Ayurvedic diagnosis is to get the complete picture and the through understanding of the state of "Tridosas" in the patient because they directly as well as indirectly play the most significant role in determining human constitution and production of diseases. From the literature available on the subject, it is clear that no sutiable instrument for the quantitative assessment of "Tridosas" has been devised so far and, therefore, one has to rely on symptoms for inferring the state of "Dosas".

Pain-endurance, which is related to the psychic strength of man, has also been utilised as one of the various criteria for human classfication. In this context, no description is available with regard to any sutitable instrument for its objective assessment. It's degree differe from person to person. If it could be measured along with the study of Anthropomentry and a classfication made on its basis, one can hope of deducting the global span of life and also the Tridosic constitution of the subjects.

Keeping the above possibility in view, the present work has been conceived. As the subject of the present study com- prised of school children of growing ages between 9 to 14 years and so it could also be passible to study some of the physical growth patterns in relation to pain-endurance.

In the present work, Dr. Bhagwat Ram mainly proposes to study the relationship between the Pain Endurance and the Physical make up, in the light of the overall Ayurvedic Concept of Doshic Constitution.

To this end he studied 683 school boys of the age between 9 and 14 years from the point of view of their pain enduring capacity and sixteen measurements of the different body parts, using modern anthropometric technique.

Dr. Bhagwat Ram deserves credit for carrying out such a study under the very restricted facilities, available in the departmont. This can be appreciated by the fact that he has designed tools for his study which inspite of appearing ordinary, have worked well, to have led to verifiable results. He has put sufficient labour both in data collection as well as its statistical treatment.

Some of the main results viz., the groups which could be somatically designated as Vatic, Paittic and Kephaja were found to have low, medium and high pain-endurance, puts the vague Ayurvedic description of Satwa Sarata on a sounder objective footing. The observations that the pain endurance is directly correlated with the Hand Breadth is also worthy of note and indirectly supports one of the Ayurvedic views on the subject of longevity, which is again related with the Doshic Prakriti disease. A knowledge of these characteristics can also help in laying down important guidelines in treatment of patient, since it is now being widely recognised that every patient should be treated according to his own individual characteristics.