Direction: Read the following passage carefully and answer the questions correctly. During the last two decades physicians and mental health professionals have begun to discover the limitations of the western allopathic medicine. The focus on pathology and disease rather than on prevention, the destructiveness of so many pharmaceutical and surgical remedies, the separation of physical and emotional problems, the assumption of an asymmetrical relationship between an all-powerful physician and a submissive patient have led clinicians and researchers to look for answers in other traditions and cultures.
It is indeed disappointing, in this context, that in India with its long tradition of the body-mind contianuum health efforts are so largely dependent on the allopathic system which is now being increasingly rejected by western medical However, any wide open, fuzzy field like holistic health’ offers abundant opportunity for fraud and overpromise. The new paradigm of health is not a licence for quackery. Holistic health is a perspective, not a specialisation or a discipline.
The body-mind is a process, so is disease a process, so is healing or making whole.
It was discovered that it is not a simple physical change but rather the state of mind that is the key to health. This state has been called “restful altertness”, “passive volition”, “deliberate letting’. Cumulative stresses seem to melt under this seemingly paradoxical state, restoring natural flow to the body-mind whirlpool.
Clearly, health services, as we know them are essential but equally clearly, they are not There is an urgent need to blend the ancient traditional ways with some of the discoveries of modern medicine to make for a truly healthy society. The first and most important area deserving urgent attention is Child Health Care.
Conventionally, it is the doctor and the hospitals that are seen today as the entre of all health care, the mother and the child are at the periephery. It is perhaps necessary to see the mother as the centre of Child Health care. It is
she who is the highest level health worker- -not by training or in qualifications but in time and love, in the special knowledge of her own children, in the breadth of ‘integrated services’ she provides, and in the permanent presence she brings to her child’s life. This indeed was the basis of the ancient child are practices and it is well that it is being rediscovered. The implications of this are rather manifold: Mother must be imparted the knowledge, skills and techniques required for her to do the job well.
The old civilisations did this through word of mouth from one generation to another. Modern civilisations can improve on this but the essence will remain the same.
1. The passage brings out the difference in all of the following cases except
a) modern and ancient role of mother in Child Health Care
b) ancient Indian and modern western system of medicine
c) treatment of the patient and of the disease
d) treatment of body alone and of body and mind together
2. Allopathy has been found deficient of late because of all of the following reasons except
a) neglect of the principle of “prevention is better than cure”
b) ill-effects of surgical remedies
c) ill-effects of drugs
d) None of these
3. A physician is unable to play a primary role in Child Health Care because he lacks
a) training in Child Health Care.
b) qualifications to treat children.
c) complete knowledge of the child.
d) experience in carefully handling the child.
Sol:
The last paragraph tells us that the mother plays a better primary role because she possesses a “special knowledge of her own children”.
4. Which of the following four terms is not synonymous with the remaining three?
a) Peaceful attentiveness
b) Restful alertness
c) Passive volition
d) Body-mind whirlpool
Sol:
The options a, b, and c have same meaning.
