In the passing away of Shri Jyoti Basu, we lost a great public-spirited leader. A lot has been said about how he empowered the poor through land reforms and by implementing panchayat raj.
Some had also remarked how he, an atheist, admired Mother Teresa and helped her in some ways. That of course, is the hallmark of a rationalist; you do not have to believe in god to do good to people.
Little, however, has been said of his ultimate act of rationalism and public spirit. This was his decision not to have his body cremated or buried, but to offer it for organ donation.
As Bachi Karkaria wrote in her column (The Times of India, January 21, 2010): “He did not offer the ultimate catharsis which comes with the leap of flames or even the more prosaic clang of an electric crematorium’s door. His chosen final resting place was a hospital dissection table”.
What a noble thing to do! In having decided to do this, he exemplified one important quality that a “public servant” is supposed to have, namely, “Paropakaram Idam Sarivam” * or “this body of mine is for the benefit of others” (in more ways than one).
Or, as we extol the elephant in Tamil: “Yaanai Irundalum Aayiram Pon, Irandalum Aayiram Pon” (the elephant is worth a thousand gold sovereigns, alive or dead). Can you name any other leader in India who gave his body away to help others?
The Hindu reported (Jan 21, 2010) that Basu’s decision to donate his eyes and body seems to be motivating people to follow his example.
Dr. R.C. Pal of the Susrut Eye Hospital, Kolkata is quoted as saying “I can assure you that the corneas will be used”. Some have wondered whether the corneas of a 95-year-old man who wore glasses much of his life will be useful for transplant.
The answer is yes, if the corneas had been removed using proper procedure, and if the number of cells in the back of the cornea is above the critical value. There is no reason to doubt the former, given the stature of the donor and the eye bank involved. The latter, the number of endothelial cells per unit area, needs to be determined, and if it passes the requirement, the cornea can be used for transplantation to any needy person.
Work at the Ramayamma International Eye Bank, Hyderabad has shown that it is this, namely the endothelial cell count, plus the transparency of the tissue, that determine the suitability of a cornea for transplant, not the age of the donor. It has thus been possible to use corneas of not just senior, but super-senior citizens, to restore vision to the needy.
And hereby hangs a scientific fact. Of all organs and tissues in the body, many “turn over”. Skin cells are lost daily and new cells replace them. Red blood cells turn over every 120 days.
Thus, Mr. Basu’s age, if you ask of his blood, was only 4 months. The cornea of the eye too replenishes itself. Every time we blink we lose some corneal surface cells but new ones replace them. Other parts of the cornea too turn over, though slower. But the eye lens is one tissue that does not turn over. Hence it is your true age marker. Mr. Basu’s lenses revealed his chronological age of 95. But in his corneas, he was somewhat younger.
Shri. Basu’s brain has been gifted for medical research and the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) at Bangalore is keen on acquiring it for study. Professor S.K. Shankar there is reported to say: “Even though he was 95 years old, he had very good mental faculties till his end. His brain could become a normal control sample that we need for comparing healthy brains with the brains of people with neurodegenerative diseases”.
The NIMHANS Brain Bank, which has over 100 human brains of all ages, is well suited to acquire and study Shri. Basu’s brain.
In reading about this interest in Basu’s brain, my mind went back to the remarkable book by Carl Sagan titled “Broca’s Brain – Reflections on the Romance of Science” (Ballantine Books, 1974). In one of the essays there, called Broca’s Brain, Sagan goes to Musee de l’Homme in Paris, and finds a glass container with a human brain in it, labeled P. Broca.
In his hands was the preserved brain of Dr. Paul Broca, a major figure in the development of medicine and anthropology of the mid-ninetieth century.
Sagan gets to contemplate on one part of the preserved brain and writes “a small region in the third convolution of the left frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex, a region now known as Broca’s area.
Articulate speech, it turns out, as Broca inferred only on fragmentary evidence, is to an important extent localized and controlled by Broca’s area … It was one of the first indications that specific brain functions exist in particular locales in the brain, that there is a connection between the anatomy of the brain and what the brain does, an activity sometimes described as mind”.
People generally think of museums as curio collections of stones and bones. But they offer insights and advance knowledge, and can once in an occasional while spark leaps of creative thought. When he lived, Basu made a difference to the lives of people with his brain in a body. Let us wait and see what he does with his brain in a bottle. What he has already done is to motivate more of us to donate our bodies to benefit others. You cannot take it with you. Give it away. I plan to do so.
Correction
*The quote “Paropakarartam Idam Sariram” went as “Paropakaram Idam Sarivam” in the above article “On the bequeathal of Basu’s body” .
