The first law of Thermodynamics: How it is important in life?

“To know how to grow olds the masterwork of wisdom”- Henri Amiel

There are so much happening in life that I wish I had known the above saying early in life to keep quiet when I grow older, rather than try to correct the wrongs in society. But now it is too late and the bad habit has stuck so hard that it is difficult to keep quiet when things don’t seem in order, nor are done for the good of humanity at large. There is a tendency for a change in every walk of life.

Let us talk about the political scene in our country. We daily see the smaller groups of people perceiving the advantages of fragmenting the country for their benefit, into smaller and smaller bits as if we have not had enough of the already existing states in the country. What with all the administrative machinery eating up most of the country’s annual budget, leaving very little for any development works, we still want more administrators and expensive ministers in the newer States. Almost every day a new party is born only to die a natural death after making enough money.

Larger parties are breaking up every day into all sorts of smaller fragments, named after individuals

This will certainly destroy our democracy in the long run.

Here, again I am trying to explain something. Take the example of the human body for our analysis. It is very good at functioning as an organism for nearly seventy-five odd years if in good shape and fit. If any of the organs declare independence, in the long run, the whole system will disintegrate and get destroyed.No part of the human body could function in total isolation.

Man, in the new set-up, is perceived as his body which we see with all its details of height, weight body mass index, fat pad thickness and many other details that we could measure with our present knowledge. This is called his Phenotype( form or shape) which accounts for only 30 per cent of his make up.

Time evolution in the dynamic human organism does not follow the linear equations that we use in medicine. For better use of future predictions, we must view the body as a whole with, when possible, the knowledge of the genome and the mind.

Just example, take the current situation of hospitals. Hospitals, derived from the word hospitality, were very good for the sick, but they have changed to specialist clinics and later became superspecialists in their attitude. Do we learn our lessons from other mistakes? Never! As we are very clever we want to go through the same mistakes and learn for ourselves.

We, the proud Indians, are going in for five-star hospitals and try and fragment medical practice into specialities and Superspecialities.

A smaller group of individuals calling themselves specialists, try to see the advantages in becoming independent of the previously unified setup, put forward arguments to fragment the system. They claim to do better patient care and give hi-tech specialised service to the specialised sick, belonging to their micro speciality. They forget to look at the whole and in the bargain, never get the wisdom of keeping the organisation as a whole for the good of the suffering humanity.

A cancer specialist thinks that the whole of the organisation needs to be his better patient care. He puts forward an argument to show that cancer treatment and Cancer detection are the keys to keep a man alive on this planet. Despite all the efforts, the death rate in cancer has not shown a tendency to go down, although in some subsections they have achieved some success.

The best thing for the common people in the present set-up is to have a good family doctor as his friend, philosopher and guide. Everyone should be guided by his family doctor in matters of health and illness. The specialist should be consulted when advised by the family doctor. If we followed, this method might cut down the incidence of a new disease called, the Ulysses syndrome. The present-day heroic surgeries and another mode of treatment are all fine as long as the hero’s role is played by the poor patient who subjects himself to the procedure.

We must be careful about this new trend for fragmentation. Fragmentation is ultimately inevitable and will destroy any organism or organisation. It is the rule or law called the First Law of Thermodynamics. It is frightening to know the future prospects of the health care industry with the First Law of Thermodynamics in operation.

Physics is the king of sciences and the law of physics can not go wrong.