Inflammatory bowel disease: the Indian augury

Excerpt

A little boy accompanied by his father was taken to a museum of diseases. His father gloated upon mankind’s successes in alleviating diseases. The first window showed smallpox and its demise, the second window showed plague and its extermination, and the third window showed malaria and its systematic decimation. The little boy’s faith in dominance of medical science soared and he started getting convinced in the infallibility of man as he mounted the steps to the second floor of the museum. The second floor was damp and squidgy and so became the little boy’s enthusiasm when he saw conquests being replaced by new scourges, a whole row of emerging diseases: diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and celiac disease. Spontaneously, he remarked, “The disease wagon appears to have a mind of its own and keeps on replacing conquered diseases with a new or complex one. As if the disease wagon is leading medical scientists on an ever ongoing merry-go-round. Is the field of medicine moving in circles and trying to catch its own tail?” His father, a wise seasoned soul, assuaged his crestfallen son and explained “Predicting and controlling diseases ultimately requires an intuitive appreciation of biocomplexity—the elaborate interrelationships between biological systems (including human social systems) and their physical environments and until we do it the circle will move on.” This is precisely the most significant message the emergence of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in India augurs for the medical community. The initiative of Indian Society of Gastroenterology (ISG) Task Force and the ensuing survey is a laudatory effort which has propelled awareness of IBD as a disease from background to the fore. …