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YOGA AND CARDIOLOGY IN
FRANCE
Madame Dr. Doussy
Before telling you about the experiences we have had at the Hospital Tenen over the past thirteen years, I would like to say that I am very interested in the work done by the Indian cardiologists of whom I have read in books given to me by Paramahamsa Niranjanananda, as well as by the discussion of Prof. Wasir this morning. But perhaps I should tell you something about my own work first of all. How did yoga enter such a closed area as a hospital in Paris? It was a personal experience that was at the root of this development.
It was in 1969, almost 25 years ago. I was overloaded with medical work, as well as by my family life, with young children. I was living in a permanent situation of stress. What had to happen, happened, and more and more I was attacked by angina pectoris, so repeatedly that I was afraid of a heart attack. It was Prof. Cloreg, who was not yet in charge of the department, who looked after me. I had all the usual therapies, the anti-coagulant, the byproducts of nitre, and I did not feel better at all. It was at that point that yoga crossed my path. That was a true resurrection. I started practising vo
yoga actively. I did not wait long before starting to teach yoga to my patients who suffered from cardiovascular illnesses. Faced with the results I obtained, Prof. Cloreg sent me his personal patients. Later, Prof. Cloreg became Head of the Department and he held the Chair of Medicine. He then told me that we were going to start a yoga consultancy. To do a rigorous study, in view of the rather large demand, we were obliged to limit ourselves and to choose one pathology. We chose to study hypertension, high blood pressure. Then we established in work procedure, preliminary examinations for each patient wie had chosen.
First there were clinical examinations, then biological examinations which were followed by complementary
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