by Anatoly ZUBAREV, Dr. Sc. (Med.), Director of the Research and Practical Center for Expert Evaluation and Rehabilitation, ZASHCHITA (Protection) National Center of Medicine of Disasters, Ministry of Health and Social Development of the Russian Federation; Viktor SHCHEBLANOV, Dr. Sc. (Biol.), Head of the Laboratory of Psychophysiological Support BIOFIZIKA (Biophysics) Institute, the same Ministry

The majority of people know since childhood that pulse, which we can feel and count, shows heartbeat.

Today it is difficult to find anyone who does not know how a cardiogram looks. But few of our contemporaries know what ancient Christian theologists and Chinese Daocism theorists thought and said about the heart. We know little about the new therapeutic methods used for protection from harmful electromagnetic radiation, surrounding a man everywhere and having a negative impact on heart work.

This and many other things can be found in the book Heart Images. Complementary Cardiology by Alexander Bogdanov, Dr. Sc. (Med.), (Moscow, Mir Publishers, 2007).

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The central idea of the book is a thesis postulating that qualitative changes in scientific knowledge are preceded by a long period of empirical data accumulation. This process is permanent, now on, now off. Alexander Bogdanov emphasizes that interdisciplinary studies, aimed at the choice of philosophy, which can serve as a common methodological base for the synthesis of this or that new outlook, acquire special importance in the days of rapid development of special sciences. It was not by chance that an integrated direction - synergetics - emerged, formed, and rapidly won overall recognition at the beginning of the 1960s. Hermann Haken, a well-known German scientist from Stuttgart Institute of Theoretical Physics and Synergetics, is considered to be the founder of this trend. This science in general determines the rules detecting the order in supercomplex systems, to which the rhythmic activity of the heart justly belongs.

Speaking about this regularity, the author of the book emphasizes that the notion of complementary medicine was formed at the turn of the 21st century. It is founded on the concept of a common natural scientific base of not only allopathic or homeopathic healing, but also methods theoretically based on the energetic paradigm, intrinsic to ancient East Chinese philosophic tradition and Daocism practice (qigong, acupuncture, massage, etc.).

This book is peculiar and unique, which can be seen from just the first look at the list of chapters. Here we can find heart images in the classical world and Russian literature, numerous anatomical and physiological data on the heart, its modern biophysical, physical-mathematical models, etc. Another peculiar feature of this book is that the basic and original concepts from different sources are presented in the direct formulation of their authors.

For example, the views of Alexander Goncharenko, Cand. Sc. (Med.), head of the Predtecha (Forerunner) Moscow Health Center, presented in the work "Heart Space as the Basis of Superconsciousness" (1997), constituted the main part of the chapter "Heart Taken Apart". One more chapter consists of theoretical assumptions of St. Petersburg scientist Gennagy Fokin and presents a new concept on the quantum mechanical and thermodynamic models of our circulatory system and one of the main blood cells, erythrocyte.

It is noteworthy that abundant quotations are characteristic of this book. It therefore might be considered a compilation, though very good. However, the research findings of its author Bogdanov constitute a harmonious part in the structure of the book. This circumstance explains and justifies numerous "borrowings" from other sources as a permissible form of traditional review of relevant literature. In addition, this interested discussion of the heart is really intended not to destroy, but to create relationships between systems of images, models, formed and established not only in various spheres of knowledge of Western scientific schools, but also characteristic of the philosophic traditions of the East as well.

We have to admit that the author completely solved this difficult literary and theoretical problem.

The basic natural scientific principles, such as energy paradigm, multi-level hierarchy, cyclic pattern, self-likeness, and nonlinearity, unite the different ideas presented in this book. Presenting the theoretical concepts rather difficult to understand for laymen, Bogdanov did without the unnecessary resorting to special spheres of

Human heart. A - front view; B - rear view; C - muscular layers; D - section. 1 - apex; 2 - left ventricle; 3 - right ventricle; 4 - right auricle; 5 - left auricle; 6 - pericardium (cut off); 7 - vena cava superior; 8 - aorta; 9 - nameless artery; 10 - left common carotid artery; 11 - left subclavian artery; 12 - pulmonary artery; 13 - left and right pulmonary arteries; 14 - coronary sinus of the heart; 15 - left pulmonary veins; 16 - right pulmonary veins; 17 - left atrium; 18 - right atrium; 19 - vena cava inferior; 20 - right coronary artery and its posterior descending branch; 21 - anterior descending branch of left coronary artery; 22 - left atrial cavity with the mouths of pulmonary veins; 23 - bicuspid valve; 24 - left ventricular cavity; 25 - right ventricular cavity; 26 - papillary muscles; 27 - left-ventricular muscular wall; 28 - muscular bars; 29 - muscular ventricular septum; 30 - tricuspid valve; 31 - right atrial cavity; 32 - atrial septum; 33 - external longitudinal muscular layer; 34 - annular muscular layer; 35 - internal longitudinal muscular layer; 36 - aortic semilunar valvule; 37 - pulmonary artery semilunar valvules.

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Blood plasma droplet during crystallization (75 min): A - magnification 3.5 x 7.0 x 1.1; B - magnification 7.0 x 1.1 (microphotograph).

medicine, requiring additional knowledge from a common reader. At the same time, the "core" of modern theories and views on the heart activity problem, presented in this book, is clearly seen due to the easy style of the author, presenting difficult material and skillfully using the method of analogies. Due to this the book can be referred to the popular scientific genre with good grounds. Of course, the author was permanently at the risk of becoming a hostage of reductionism*. However, he overcame this risk, as the reader perceives many assumptions in this book at just the intuitive level - "it seems, I knew before it was so". In other words, deeply plunging into the text, the reader starts understanding the subject discussed by the author with so much interest and qualification, sense, confidence, and understanding. Moreover, the author constantly reminds the reader that the analogies presented in the book should not be taken literally for "model is always just a model".

The book opens with the dictionary definitions of the heart and brief data on the etymology of this word. The great gap between the semantic and natural scientific notion of the phenomenon becomes clear at once. The poetical image is directly related to nature, God, conscience, while the hearts of peoples are linked by mysterious paths, and hence, we can speak about a certain sum thereof. The latter idea served as the bridge from poetry to natural sciences, to which Alexander Bogdanov refers further. He presents modern data on the embryology, anatomy, and physiology of the heart, supplemented by some theoretical aspects, many of which are unfortunately not completely adopted by some orthodox scientists. For example, the author claims that the hypothesis of Alexander Goncharenko on the formation of spiral bloodflows by the myocardium and the targeted delivery of these flows to certain structures in the body deserves special attention, but is in need of further studies. The scheme of correlation between myocardial sites and certain body areas, obtained by the author of the book in a series of unique experiments, is also extremely interesting, but is also in need of validation. The picture presented by the author resembles the Fest Phaistos Disk spiral** or acupuncture schemes of the ear, palm, or sole.

The title of the chapter dealing with crystallographic studies of blood plasma, carried out by a group of St. Petersburg scientists headed by Alexander Bogdanov, is intriguing: "Traces of Mysterious Processes". The scientists used the method suggested in the 1990s by Vladimir Shabalin, Member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, now head of Moscow Scientific Research Institute of Gerontology, and Svetlana Shatokhina, Doctor of Medical Sciences, heading the Laboratory of Functional Diagnosis at the same Institute. This group discovered a series of regularities, manifesting themselves during plasma crystallization that divides it into facie's (from Latin fades - image); spiral structures of the blood are formed inside these facie's during the final phases. This gave the author grounds to suggest (and present some evidence in favor of the hypothesis) that they were formed by the myocardium during its contractions.

Next, the reader can get acquainted with the theoretical model created by Gennady Fokin, St. Petersburg biophysicist, regarding the greater circulation on the basis of the energetic paradigm, with the use of classical assumptions of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics. According to Bogdanov, this scientist also came to the conclusion on the spiral structure of bloodflow in the vessels. An important supplement to this is the description of the so-called classical Eithoven*** model, demonstrating the time course of electric potentials distribution on human body surface, associated with cyclic activity of its main organ.

The chapter with a romantic title "Melody of the Heart" will attract great interest, no doubt. This chapter takes us to ancient times, when the ancient Greek physician Galen (c. 130 - 200) first suggested the musical nature of heart pulse. After a thousand years, at the very beginning of the 11th century, Avicenna, the great Arab philosopher, physician, and musician (circa 980 - 1037), became an ardent partisan of this idea; he essentially developed and supplemented Galen's hypothesis. Avicenna's art of healing, imprinted in immortal poems, was based on the Mediterranean and Eastern traditions, and Bogdanov

* Reductionism is a suggestion according to which complex phenomena can be completely explained by laws intrinsic to simpler phenomena. For example, attempt at application of exact sciences to history. This involves inevitable ignoring of higher levels of organization of this or that phenomenon. - Ed.

** Phaistos Disk is a terracotta disk 15.8 - 16.5 cm in diameter and 1.6 - 2.1 cm thick, found in 1908 by Italian archeologist L. Pernier during excavations of the palace-site of Phaistos on the island of Crete; it is covered by pictograms (more than 240) on both sides, arranged in an intricate ornament; the disk became the object of studies of scientists from many countries, but all attempts at deciphering it have failed. - Ed.

*** Eithoven, Willem (1860 - 1927) is a Dutch physiologist, founder of electrocardiography. Designed a device for recording electrical changes in the heart in 1903. In 1906 used electrocardiography for diagnostic purposes for the first time. Nobel Prizewinner, 1924. - Ed.

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has written about it in the book, inviting us to a captivating journey in space and time in order to understand the ancient methods of pulse diagnosis of heart work.

Then Bogdanov offers the readers the ancient philosophic and healing theory and practice of Tibet and China, deeply analyzing and summing up the literature on acupuncture. He sums up: "The heart is a functional system, involved in energy turnover and transformation. In addition to the circulation, the heart as a functional system is responsible for consciousness, spirit, and thoughts. Blood movement in the vessels is caused by the movement of energetic flows. The blood is the most material (manifest) form of energy."

The chapter "Stiff Spiral" will also leave nobody indifferent. It discusses works aimed at clearing out the essence of biological processes, initiated by the "spirallike form generators", developed by a group of Moscow scientists headed by Stanislav Denisov, Candidate of Technological Sciences. These devices can protect humans from exposure to pathogenic magnetic fields and electrical radiation, optimize the psychophysiological functions. The author hypothesizes the following conclusion: "Spiral-like artificial structures are a tentative model of one of the main elements of energetic structure of living organisms."

Many pages are allotted to the results of the author's own scientific school. They indicate that mental peculiarities of an individual are in a certain way related to the rhythmic activity of the heart. Interestingly, if pulse rate increases with mental strain in any human, the variety of intervals between heartbeats is linked with characteristic features of an individual.

A gallery of correlative portraits of personalities, presented in the book, demonstrates that at the energy level any of them is strictly individual. At the same time they naturally have common features. The similarity of correlations between the physical characteristics of bioactive points and the power of spectral components of heart rhythm (macrolevel) or hemolysate* absorption spectrum (microlevel) is particularly impressive. Using these "portraits", the scientist solves a "modest" problem of demonstrating the readers the role of heuristic (productive-creative) criteria in science and remind them that intuition is an absolutely obligatory component of successful scientific process.

Following his own findings, the author comments on the theological texts indicating exceptional significance of the heart image and elements of energy paradigm in the Christian traditions. He considers that the works of Gregory Palama**, who summed up the postulations of other Christian theologists, clearly demonstrate the possibility of unification of some Christian dogmata, assumptions of the Western orthodox science, and even fundamental concepts of ancient Chinese philosophers.

In conclusion, the author, as is common in scientific literature, not only sums up his considerations, but also offers the readers the questions, each of which can become a new topic for discussion.

It is very difficult to evaluate this original and highly interesting book unambiguously. We hope that every reader will make his or her own conclusions based on personal erudition and life experience.

Cardiorhythmograms. Horizontal axes: cardiocycle No.; vertical axes: duration (sec).

Illustrations from A. Bogdanov's book 'Heart Images. Complementary Cardiology"

* Hemolysate: destroyed blood cells together with plasma. - Ed.

** St. Gregory Palama (1296 - 1359), Byzantine theologist and priest, Archbishop of Thessaloniki, advocate of the Orthodox doctrine of Divine Light. Developed the ideas on the difference between the Essence of God (beyond the limits and inaccessible) and His energies (self-revelations), impregnating the world and rendered to the human. In 1351 Palama's doctrine was acknowledged as the official doctrine of the Byzantine Church. - Ed.