title: Systems approach in medical technologies.
abstract: Health and diseases are two states of a living organism defined by and understood through many physiological process. The absence of disease is not healthy, as much as the reverse, namely the absence of health, is not disease either. These two end points are connected through a continuum in which a person moves constantly.Health also refers to the psychosomatic equilibrium as well as the person's interaction and exchanges with the environment. Hence, health is not to be assessed in isolation by an analysis of some arbitary parameters. A holistic approach is required in the assessment which includes the egocentric, psychocentric and ecocentric exchanges of the person in question. In these, the role of 'Modern' medicine is only limited; we need to reassess ancient, ecocentric medical technologies in this holistic approach. This paper introduces the concepts of Cartesian and Reductionsist approach of modern medicine, its obvious shortcomings, the holistic approaches of ancient medical technologies and their suitability in the management of psychosomatic disorders.
authors.affiliation: Biomedical Engineering Division, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras - 600 036, India.
authors.forename: T M
authors.initials: TM
authors.lastname: Srinivasan