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Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and
IoT for Smart Healthcare
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Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and
IoT for Smart Healthcare

Hitesh Kumar Sharma


University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India

Anuj Kumar
University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India

Sangeeta Pant
University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India

Mangey Ram
Graphic Era Deemed to be University, Dehradun, India

River Publishers
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River Publishers
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ISBN: 978-87-7022-757-5 (Hardback)


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©2022 River Publishers

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in


a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of
the publishers.
Contents

Preface ix

List of Figures xi

List of Tables xiii

List of Abbreviations xv

1 Introduction to Smart Healthcare and Telemedicine Systems 1


1.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 Traditional Healthcare vs Smart Healthcare . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3 Challenges in Smart Healthcare and Telemedicine . . . . . . 5
1.4 Steps Involved for Accessing Smart Healthcare and
Telemedicine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

2 Advanced Technologies Involved in Smart Healthcare and


Telemedicine Systems 13
2.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2.2 Advanced Technologies Used in Smart Healthcare . . . . . . 14
2.2.1 AI in Smart Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
2.2.2 Cloud Computing in Smart Healthcare . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.3 Cyber Security and Forensic in Smart Healthcare . . 16
2.2.4 IoT in Smart Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
2.2.5 Blockchain in Smart Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . 19
2.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

3 Role of Artificial Intelligence, IoT and Blockchain in Smart


Healthcare 25
3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2 Role AI in Smart Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

v
vi Contents

3.3 Role IoT in Smart Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31


3.4 Role Blockchain in Smart Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

4 Application of Artificial Intelligence


in Smart Healthcare 37
4.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
4.2 Role of AI in Smart Healthcare and Other Sectors . . . . . . 39
4.3 Use-cases of AI in Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.4 Challenges of AI in Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
4.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

5 Application of IoT in Smart Healthcare 47


5.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
5.2 Role of IoT in Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
5.3 Users of IoT in Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
5.4 Challenges of IoT in Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
5.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54

6 Application of Blockchain in Smart Healthcare 57


6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
6.2 Application of Blockchain in Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . 60
6.3 Challenges of Blockchain in Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . 63
6.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

7 Security and Privacy challenge in Smart Healthcare and


Telemedicine systems 67
7.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
7.2 Literature Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
7.3 Security Challenge in Smart Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . 70
7.4 User Authentication Process in Smart Healthcare . . . . . . 72
7.5 Security Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
7.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74

8 Electronic Healthcare Record (EHR) Storage using Blockchain


for Smart Healthcare 77
8.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
8.2 Framework of EHR Storage and Need of Blockchain . . . . 78
8.3 Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Contents vii

8.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83

9 Methodologies for Improving the Quality of Service and Safety


of Smart Healthcare 85
9.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
9.2 QoS and Safety Requirement in Smart Healthcare . . . . . . 87
9.3 Methods for Improving QoS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
9.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92

10 Cloud Commuting Platform for Smart Healthcare and


Telemedicine 95
10.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
10.2 Cloud Computing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
10.3 Types of Cloud Computing Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
10.4 Significance of Cloud Computing in Smart Healthcare . . . 99
10.5 Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
10.6 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

11 Smart Healthcare and Telemedicine Systems: Present and


Future Applications 105
11.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
11.2 Current Application of Smart Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . 107
11.3 Future Application of Smart Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . 110
11.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114

Index 117

About the Authors 119


Preface

This book is motivated by the fact that Telemedicine and e-Healthcare have
eased as well as improved the reachability of experienced doctors and medical
staff to remote patients. This book presents a cross-disciplinary perspective
on the concept of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Blockchain,
Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data Analytics, Cyber Security, Cloud Com-
puting, Sensors and so on that are vital to foster the development of smart
healthcare and telemedicine systems.
The objective of this book is to equip the knowledge for beginners as
well as for the advanced readers related to the field of smart healthcare and
telemedicine. It will provide a detailed description of how advanced tech-
nologies like Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT) and Blockchain
can change the traditional way of handling patients to a smart and automated
manner from remote locations. The integration of advanced techniques in
healthcare can be helpful to serve humanity in a better way.
This book can be an initiator for changing the current perspective of
handling patients in the traditional way physically to handling patients in a
modern way remotely.

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hitesh Kumar Sharma


Assoc. Prof. Dr. Anuj Kumar
Assis. Prof. Dr. Sangeeta Pant
Prof. Dr. Mangey Ram

ix
List of Figures

Figure 1.1 Basic module of smart healthcare system . . . . . . 4


Figure 1.2 Smart healthcare authentication process flow
diagram. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Figure 2.1 AI in healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Figure 2.2 IoT in smart healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Figure 2.3 Blockchain in healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Figure 3.1 Role of AI in smart healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Figure 3.2 Role of IoT in smart healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Figure 3.3 Role of AI in smart healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Figure 4.1 Role of AI in smart healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . 40
Figure 5.1 IoT usage in various sectors . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Figure 5.2 Data flow in smart healthcare application using
IoT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Figure 5.3 IoT-based smart watch information flow. . . . . . . 50
Figure 6.1 Blockchain characteristics . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Figure 6.2 Blockchain transaction approval flow . . . . . . . . 60
Figure 6.3 Blockchain user in smart healthcare system . . . . 61
Figure 6.4 Connection of blocks in blockchain . . . . . . . . . 62
Figure 7.1 Smart healthcare system or telemedicine system
(user diagrams) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
Figure 7.2 Security challenges in smart healthcare . . . . . . . 71
Figure 7.3 Security challenges in smart healthcare . . . . . . . 72
Figure 7.4 Use case diagram of smart healthcare/telemedicine
system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Figure 8.1 Basic framework of EHR storage . . . . . . . . . . 79
Figure 8.2 Integration of HER and blockchain . . . . . . . . . 81
Figure 9.1 Technologies used in smart healthcare . . . . . . . 86
Figure 9.2 Services required in smart healthcare . . . . . . . . 89
Figure 10.1 Cloud storage for medical data . . . . . . . . . . . 96

xi
xii List of Figures

Figure 10.2 EHR storage and flow in cloud storage . . . . . . . 103


Figure 11.1 Smart healthcare system (block diagram) . . . . . . 106
Figure 11.2 Current smart healthcare stakeholders . . . . . . . 108
Figure 11.3 Future applications of smart healthcare . . . . . . . 111
List of Tables

Table 1.1 Comparison of traditional healthcare and smart health-


care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Table 7.1 Security services required in smart healthcare . . . . . 69

xiii
List of Abbreviations

AI Artificial Intelligence
ALS Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
ANN Artificial Neural Networks
API Application Programming Interface
AR Augmented Reality
BCI Bain Computer Interfaces
CAGR Compound Annual Growth Rate
COPD Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
COVID Corona Virus Disease
CT Computed Tomography
DLT Distributed Ledger Technology
DNA Deoxyribonucleic Acid
DoS Denial of Service
ECG Electrocardiography
e-Healthcare Electronic Healthcare
e-Hospital Electronic Hospital
EHR Electronic Health Record
EMR Electronic Medical Records
GDP Gross Domestic Product
IoMT Internet of Medical Things
IoT Internet of Things
IT Information Technology
KSI Keyless Signature Infrastructure
ML Machine Learning
MRI Magnetic Resonance Imaging
NIST National Institute of Standard and Technology
NLP Natural Language Processing
OCD Obsessive-Compulsive Disorde
PDSA PLAN-DO-STUDYACT
PGHD Patient Generated Health Data
PHI Protected Health Information

xv
xvi List of Abbreviations

QoS Quality of Service


ROI Return on Investment
SGA System Global Area
SHA Secure Hash Algorithm
SOA Service Orientated Architecture
SOS Save Our Souls
SWOT Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats
TMIS Telecare Medical Information system
USA United State of America
USD United State Dollar
UV Ultraviolet
VR Virtual Reality
WFH Work from Home
WHO World Health Organization
1
Introduction to Smart Healthcare
and Telemedicine Systems

Abstract
Healthcare is one of the most important sectors that needs the integration
of advanced technologies. IoT-enabled sensors, Electronic Health Record
(EHR) storage, advanced data analysis algorithms, metaheuristic optimiza-
tion techniques are helping a traditional healthcare system for becoming
smart healthcare. In a pandemic, the recent development of e-healthcare
systems and telemedicine systems have proven the significance and neces-
sity of these advancements in the healthcare sector. Smart Healthcare and
telemedicine are not the solutions for all health-related problems, but these
can be used for addressing many health issues without any physical move-
ment of patients and doctors. The telemedicine system will help in the
reduction of an unnecessary crowd in Private and Government Hospitals.
Using these kinds of telemedicine platforms, a patient who resides in a
Rural Area can get their health consultancy from various available prestigious
hospitals and world-class doctors across the globe. This approach increases
the efficiency and availability of an expert doctors and medical staff whenever
required.

Keywords: Smart Healthcare, e-Hospital, telemedicine, EHR.

1.1 Introduction
Smart Healthcare is enablement of traditional healthcare with advanced IT
technologies. It is an integration of various technologies together for pro-
viding real-time health related data gathering from a patient using smart
wearable devices and diagnosis of the health issues in real-time from

1
2 Introduction to Smart Healthcare and Telemedicine Systems

collected data. Digital storage of health records helps patients and doctors to
share information with each other from remote locations without any physical
presence. It eliminates travelling time of doctors and patients, which is
generally wasted in traditional healthcare approach. A telemedicine system is
a smart healthcare system that is specially used for tele-based consultancy [1].
In this system, a patient sitting at their home can directly connect to the doctor
remotely through a telemedicine system. The doctor can interact with the
patient through audio/video call and using stored electronic health records; a
doctor can diagnose the disease for the patient and prescribe him the required
medicine. Telemedical information systems are playing important role in
providing health services to patients. There are certain advantages of these
services, it can save patient’s time and expenses. The geographical distance
between patient and doctor is eliminated [2, 3]. Sitting at home, a user can
easily share their health information with doctors and a doctor can easily
check the data, irrespective of geographical locations. Since TMIS is provided
over the internet, it is vulnerable to various confidentiality and integrity
attacks. It also provides privacy to patients and guarantee of the reliability of
the system [4, 5]. In the Internet of Things (IoT) environment, various system
and devices like embedded systems, mobile devices, actuators and sensors
can receive huge amounts of information through data exchanging and inter-
connection which solves the most important issue and preserve individual
privacy and secure the shared data. Use of medical sensors for better treatment
of patients by reaching inaccessible parts of body, minimizing the disruption
of the body functions and minimizing energy consumption. These sensors
can provide various functions like diagnostics, implants, electrophysiology
treatments, navigation, orthopaedic aids.
Telemedicine and e-hospital already proved their existence worldwide in
pandemic situations like COVID-19. This technology and various available
platforms were required for remote guidance when physical presence for
doctors and patients is not possible. Some of the most popular Web/Mobile
based telemedicine systems are given below:
• Teladoc (US)
• Doctoroo (Australia)
• Livi (UK)
• Practo (India)
• WhiteCoat (Singapore)
In 2018, the market size of telemedicine was USD 34.28 billion. It has
been projected in a survey that it will be USD 185.66 billion by 2025,
1.2 Traditional Healthcare vs Smart Healthcare 3

having CAGR of 23.5% in the predicted timeline. As per Telehealth Index


(2019) by American Well’s, 350,000–595,000 US physicians will be active
on Telehealth technology by 2022. As per the survey of American Well’s, the
following points were identified:
• 77% efficient use of the time of doctors and patients
• Reduced health care cost by 71%
• 71% effective communication between doctor and patients
• 60% enhancement in doctor and patient relation.
Telemedicine is a platform, which has Technical and Socioeconomic rele-
vance in the Healthcare sector. Telemedicine systems have already proved
their relevance across the Globe but India is behindhand to use this extraor-
dinary and revolutionary platform because of Digital Illiteracy in Rural areas
[6, 7]. Peoples living in rural areas are not aware of these lifesaving technical
platforms. All developed countries in the world are using these platforms
to serve high-quality healthcare facilities in minimum timespan and generate
revenues to get economic benefits. It is possible for these developed countries
just because of digital awareness and the proper IT infrastructure available.
As I have mentioned earlier, in 2018, the market size of telemedicine was
USD 34.28 billion. It has been projected in a survey that it will be USD
185.66 billion by 2025, having CAGR of 23.5% in the predicted timeline.
As per Telehealth Index (2019) by American Well’s, 350,000–595,000 US
physicians will be active on Telehealth technology by 2022.

1.2 Traditional Healthcare vs Smart Healthcare


A traditional healthcare system is a system in which a patient moves from his
residence to a hospital/clinic for his health-related issues. In some cases, the
doctor needs to move to the patient’s residence for diagnosis and prescribed
medicines. In this approach of health treatment time and cost is unnecessarily
wasted. The travelling time for patients and doctors can be easily saved with
some advancement in this traditional approach.
There are various advanced technologies that may be useful to convert
traditional healthcare to smart healthcare. In smart healthcare, there is no
requirement for the physical movement of patients and doctors [8]. Due to this
the doctors can diagnose more patients as their travelling time is completely
saved and he/she can diagnose more patients at the same time.
In Figure 1.1, we have shown an example of a basic module of a smart
healthcare system. In this diagram we have shown that using IoT sensors,
4 Introduction to Smart Healthcare and Telemedicine Systems

Figure 1.1 Basic module of smart healthcare system

GPS, cloud storage, AI-based data analysis, Mobile/Web based dashboard are
helpful for collecting, storing and analysing the real-time data of a patient.
This diagram shows a small use case of smart healthcare. In this diagram,
we have shown a smart wearable device used for alerting on violating social
distance constraints.
Recent technological advancements are offering users new and easier
ways to access healthcare services. With the advent of high-speed networks,
low-cost storage, inexpensive telecommunication systems, patient monitoring
systems, cloud computing, the Tele-care Medical Information system (TMIS)
is becoming a reality. Due to the advantage of telehealth care medical system,
we are reaching directly to the patient’s home over the internet or mobile
networks and data is stored as Electronic Medical Records (EMR) [8, 9].
The major challenge here is ensuring secure access of communication data
by patients and doctors, for this we need a secure and efficient way of
user access control, so that attackers cannot impersonate the user or medical
server. Confidentiality, integrity and availability need to be ensured. Also, the
authentication process should be user-friendly so that even elderly patients
can use it easily. Medical data includes medical images, which might be
tampered with by intruders. One of the challenges in TMIS is to overcome
the limitation of the present market scenario and provide an efficient way
of communication between user and doctor with help of the cloud-based
system.
1.3 Challenges in Smart Healthcare and Telemedicine 5

Table 1.1 Comparison of traditional healthcare and smart healthcare


Traditional Healthcare Smart Healthcare
In this healthcare system, physical In this healthcare system, physical
movement of patient and doctor is required. movement of patient and doctor is not
required.
Health records and doctor prescription is Health records and doctor prescription is
stored in printed or hand written format in stored in digital format on cloud storage.
hospital or with patient.
More cost and time need to be invested by Less cost and time need to be invested by
patient and doctor due to unnecessary patient and doctor due to elimination of
movement. unnecessary movement because of remote
consultancy.
Real-time collection of health-related data IoT enabled wearable device helps to
on daily basis and storage is not possible in collect real-time data on daily basis and
this system. cloud storage helps to store unlimited
data in this system.
Precision and accuracy in diagnosis and Precision and accuracy in diagnosis and
prescription is not reliable as decisions are prescription is reliable as decisions are
taken on historical and non-regular data. taken on current and historical based on
regular collected data.

It will use all related advanced technologies to achieve the assigned task.
We have shown the basic differences between traditional and smart healthcare
in Table 1.1.

1.3 Challenges in Smart Healthcare and Telemedicine


Before COVID-19 Pandemic, Online education in Schools and Work from
Home (WFH) was considered a Myth and society believes that these activ-
ities are not possible without face-to-face interaction. In the same way,
e-healthcare and telemedicine were also considered an impossible process.
Most health service providers and patients considered that telemedicine
is also a myth in the healthcare sector. However, Digital India Mission
started a few years back, this association helped in a corona-virus situation
and proved that telemedicine is not a myth and it played a phenomenal
role in bridging some of the pain of the lockdown. Doctors are consult-
ing patients on Mobile apps/Phone Calls. Government of India has also
started web portals for telemedicine services (e.g., https://esanjeevaniopd.in/,
https://ehospital.gov.in/). The citizens of India are using these facilities and
getting the consultancy at their homes by good doctors across India. Due to
lack of awareness and lack of infrastructure in India, Telemedicine systems
6 Introduction to Smart Healthcare and Telemedicine Systems

still require extraordinary efforts from the Government, Doctors and technical
persons for making maximum people aware of this system and spread its
awareness in their nearby places, especially in Rural Areas. Security of
health records saved in the form of e-record is again a major challenge in
telemedicine systems [11]. Peoples are not actively using these platforms
in many countries, because they are worried about stealing of their health
records. Patient data is stored digitally as EHR for maintaining large data
and easy accessibility from anywhere. Medical data is highly confidential and
must not be tampered with because it affects the treatment given to the patient
and if the data tampers, it may lead to the wrong medication. There are some
technical challenges and vulnerabilities to the storage and access of EHRs in
cloud databases. Major challenges include ensuring confidentiality, privacy
and integrity. A more secured record storage framework with proof of concept
will increase people’s confidence in using these platforms [12]. Researchers
proposed some approaches for ensuring secure access, exchange of medical
records and securing data and transactions using blockchain technology.
The major challenges faced by doctors, patients and society in these
systems are given below.
• Lack of Infrastructure for providing high-speed internet in rural/semi-
urban areas.
• Lack of digital awareness about these advanced digital systems (e-
healthcare and telemedicine).
• Unavailability of effective storage security mechanism for storing elec-
tronic health records.
• User authentication protocols are not secured enough as required.
• Lack of Trust building in these digital systems by doctors and patients
using remote access. They still believe in physical interaction in place of
remote access for a better explanation for their health issue.
These are some major challenges faced by these smart healthcare approaches.
These challenges are decreasing as we are getting more reachability of high-
speed internet and more users are able to use smart digital devices like
smartphones. In the same way, researchers are also developing more secured
protocols and authentications schemes for making these systems more secure
and authentic.
The very first technology, which comes in the role while making this
service for helping doctors and patients is cloud computing. Cloud computing
is the platform that is the backbone of this telecare health service where
our doctors and patients get their medical reports, get their updated reports
1.3 Challenges in Smart Healthcare and Telemedicine 7

whenever doctors will receive their previous reports and all the required
treatment, they will get by the doctors here. This cloud is a backhand service
of this telecare health services and from there only patients and doctors can
easily communicate and share their reports. Cloud also ensures the confiden-
tiality, availability and integrity of data to patients and doctors, this helps them
to communicate easily and also make the data as it is, not someone who will
misinterpret the patient’s data. With the help of cloud-based services, if there
will be a case when demand for this telecare server will suddenly arise then in
this case also, the cloud can scale their services where this server is running
and also whenever demand goes down, it can scale down the services. It will
help us to maintain the cost of our telecare health server. Cloud computing,
with its on-demand availability, helped us to reach out to customers easily.
The second vastly known technology, which comes in the role of making
the telecare health services the most efficient is Machine Learning. Here, we
have one issue like some of the diseases are common to some of the patients
so, that’s the waste of time of us and doctors also to come to reach out to the
patient and treat them. Therefore, we have some machine learning algorithms
by which we can make our machine intelligent so that our machine will detect
that the newer patients have similar symptoms of some disease and treat them
with the previous treatment given to the patients having a similar disease. It
helps us to save our and doctor’s time because now there is no need to treat
patients with similar problems. It also makes the whole system more efficient.
Machine Learning/Metaheuristic algorithms make the patient diagnosis and
treatment much better because of its ability to maintain huge datasets and
afterward according to the requirement came, filtering that dataset for the
patient’s use [13]. This ultimately led to lower cost and made the whole
system powerful [14–16]. Patient satisfaction is also the prime concern for
telecare health services but because of machine learning algorithms, we are
ready to provide that to patients also [17]. So, this is how telecare health
services play an important role in providing better services to us without even
having fear of going out of our homes. In this post-COVID-19 situation, we
don’t now need to move here and there for our treatments as we can see there
is so much hustle in hospitals for treatment, so we will be safeguarded by this
telecare server as we don’t need to go outside and can get proper treatment
on the cloud [5]. The objective of the proposed approach is to help patients
get access to health care services from home. In this approach, the patient’s
disease is diagnosed remotely, prescriptions and suggestions are given to the
patients based on the intensity of symptoms, age and location. Also, patients
showing symptoms of COVID-19 are filtered. In this model as shown in
8 Introduction to Smart Healthcare and Telemedicine Systems

Figure 1.2 Smart healthcare authentication process flow diagram.

Figure 1.2, we have a central cloud-based telecare server, telehealth ser-


vice providers and patients (or users). Patients can easily access healthcare
services using any mobile device with the internet (phone, laptop, etc.,). A
telehealth service provider, at any location, can be a doctor, a team of doctors,
a clinic or a hospital. The approach is working in different phases as described
below.

1.4 Steps Involved for Accessing Smart Healthcare and


Telemedicine
There are some common steps needs to be followed by telemedicine systems
are given below.
i. Registration
a) User enters user ID, password, hospital id.
b) This submitted data will be stored as the inactive users, passwords
in hashed form.
c) Hospital admin can activate user account of doctors.
d) Patient’s account can be activated by the doctor while uploading
EHR for the first time.
e) On account activation, user data (public key, name) are mapped in
smart contract deployed on the private chain.
ii. Login
a) Enter ID, password.
1.5 Conclusion 9

b) Verify password hash. If matched, login success else, login failure.


c) Generate symmetric key, encrypt with user’s public key and store
in blockchain smart contract.
iii. Give Access Permission
a) Patients can give EHR access permission to doctor by entering
doctor’s user id and verifying patient passwords.
b) If verification is done, decrypt symmetric key with the private key,
encrypt it with doctor’s public key, store in the chain, mapped with
doctor’s address.
iv. Update EHR
a) Check access permission.
b) If have permission, get a symmetric key from the chain, decrypt it
using private key.
c) If EHR data is present then decrypt EHR with the symmetric key.
d) Match hash of EHR with the hash stored in a smart contract.
e) If hash matched, Update EHR, encrypt using the symmetric key.
f) Generate new hash and store again in a chain.
v. View EHR
a) Check access permission.
b) If have permission, get an encrypted symmetric key from a chain,
decrypt it using the private key.
c) Get encrypted EHR from cloud storage, decrypt it using a symmet-
ric key.
d) Match hash of this EHR with the hash stored in the chain. If hash
matches display EHR.
After successfully registration and login by patient and doctor, both can
exchange the information of digital health records i.e., EHR using the same
telemedicine platform. The doctor can check patient lab reports and other
health related information from these EHRs and can write a prescription to
patients for their disease.

1.5 Conclusion
Smart Healthcare or telemedicine System is not the solution for all health-
related problems, but it can be used for addressing many health issues without
any physical movement of patients and doctors. It will help in the reduction
of an unnecessary crowd in Private and Government Hospitals. Using these
10 Introduction to Smart Healthcare and Telemedicine Systems

kinds of telemedicine platforms, a patient who resides in a Rural Area can


get their health consultancy from various available prestigious hospitals and
world-class doctors across the globe. This approach increases the efficiency
and availability of an expert doctors and medical staff whenever required.
The necessity of these kinds of systems is also required quality and safety
in the same manner. These systems are directly deal with the health of the
general public, so a strong and efficient authentication mechanism also need
in these systems. Block-chain based authentication is a proposal that we
have proposed in this chapter. Block-chain based authentication scheme can
be implemented in telemedicine and it can secure this system as it secured
cryptocurrency.

References
[1] R.K. Kustwar, and S. Ray, (2020). E-Health and telemedicine in India:
An overview on the health care need of the people. Journal of Multidis-
ciplinary Research in Healthcare, 6(2), 25–36. https://doi.org/10.15415
/jmrh.2020.62004.
[2] A. Saha, et al., (2019). Review on ‘Blockchain technology based med-
ical healthcare system with privacy issues’. Security and Privacy. 2.
10.1002/spy2.83.
[3] S. Taneja, E. Ahmed, and J.C. Patni, (2019). ‘I-Doctor: An IoT based
self patient’s health monitoring system’, International Conference on
Innovative Sustainable Computational Technologies, CISCT.
[4] A. Sharma, et al., (2018). Health monitoring and management using IoT
devices in a Cloud Based Framework. In: International Conference on
Advances in Computing and Communication Engineering (ICACCE),
pp. 219–224.
[5] N. Kamdar, et al., (2020). Telemedicine: A digital interface for periop-
erative anesthetic care, Anesthesia and analgesia: 130(2), 272–275, doi:
10.1213/ANE.0000000000004513.
[6] S. Salman, et al., (2020). A secure blockchain-based e-health records
storage and sharing scheme, Journal of Information Security and Appli-
cations, 55, 102590.
[7] H.M. Hussien, et al., (2019). A systematic review for enabling of dvelop
a blockchain technology in healthcare application: Taxonomy, substan-
tially analysis, motivations, challenges, Recommendations and future
direction. Journal of Medical Systems, 43(10). doi: 10.1007/s10916
-019-1445-8.
References 11

[8] S. Hitesh Kumar, and J. C. Patni, (2020). ‘Pandemic diagnosis and


analysis using clinical decision support systems’, Journal of Critical
Reviews.
[9] S. Gupta, and H.K Sharma, (2021). ‘User anonymity based secure
authentication protocol for telemedical server systems’, International
Journal of Information and Computer Security.
[10] Shailender, and H.K. Sharma, (2018). Digital cancer diagnosis with
counts of adenoma and luminal cells in plemorphic adenoma immunas-
tained healthcare system, IJRAR, 5(12).
[11] J.C. Patni, P. Ahlawat, and S.S. Biswas, (2020). ‘Sensors based smart
healthcare framework using internet of things (IoT)’, International
Journal of Scientific and Technology Research 9(2), pp. 1228–1234.
[12] S. Purri, et al., (2017). ‘Specialization of IoT applications in health
care industries’, Proceedings IEEE International Conference Big Data
Analysis Computer Intelligence (ICBDAC), pp. 252–256.
[13] A. Joshi, et al., (2020). ‘Data mining in healthcare and predicting
obesity,’ in Proceedings of the Third International Conference on
Computational Intelligence and Informatics, pp. 877–888, Hyderabad,
India.
[14] G. Negi, et al., (2021). ‘Optimization of complex system reliability
using hybrid grey wolf optimizer’. Decision Making: Applications in
Management and Engineering, 4(2), 241–256, https://doi.org/10.31181
/dmame210402241n.
[15] G. Negi, et al., (2021). GWO: A review and applications. International
Journal of System Assurance Engineering Management 12, 1–8, https:
//doi.org/10.1007/s13198-020-00995-8.
[16] A. Kumar, et al., (2018). ‘Complex system reliability analysis and
optimization,’ Advanced Mathematical Techniques in Science and Engi-
neering, 1, 185–198, River Publishers.
[17] D.S.R. Krishnan, et al., (2018). An IoT based patient health monitoring
system, 2018 International Conference on Advances in Computing and
Communication Engineering (ICACCE), p. 1–7.
2
Advanced Technologies Involved in Smart
Healthcare and Telemedicine Systems

Abstract
According to a comprehensive study by market and market, the global health-
care market is estimated to reach more than USD 829 billion by the year
2026 from USD 319 billion in 2021 at a compound annual growth rate of
21% during the period under consideration. Such a humongous growth of the
healthcare market is attributed to the changing policies of governments where
many of them are investing highly in healthcare, telemedical and IT solutions
to existing problems. This growth can also be attributed to the high ROI and
business growth associated with healthcare IT solutions, the accumulation of
big data and the escalation in its use for devising better solutions, the demand
to curb the rising prices of healthcare and many more.
In this chapter, we have described the involvement of some advanced
technologies like robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of
Things (IoT), blockchain, cloud computing, etc. in smart healthcare and
telemedicine.

Keywords: smart healthcare, e-hospital, telemedicine, cloud computing,


artificial intelligence, IoT, blockchain.

2.1 Introduction
With the aid of modern technologies, smart healthcare is able to provide high-
quality solutions in the field of healthcare and medicine. Smart healthcare
becomes a new reality and this original idea provides incredible service to
COVID-19 patients and executes exact operations. The present pandemic
situation is easily managed and digitally controlled due to the modern

13
14 Advanced Technologies Involved in Smart Healthcare

technologies associated with smart healthcare. In the world of medicine,


advanced technologies take on new problems in creating effective support
systems for physicians, surgeons and patients in the medical world. Informa-
tion technologies and electronics play a vital role in controlling and managing
the current pandemic situation. In India e-health and telemedicine is in the
first phase [1]. It needs more development and investment for smart healthcare
and telemedicine.
Some of the advanced technologies are listed below and the involvement
of these latest technologies can help to convert traditional healthcare into
smart healthcare.
• Artificial intelligence and machine learning
• Robotics
• Cloud computing and storage
• Cyber security and forensic
• IoT
• Blockchain
• Computer vision
In his research work, Saha et al., (2019) have defined the use of blockchain in
telemedicine [2]. Various authors have proposed IoT based systems or cloud-
based systems for smart healthcare systems [3–5].
In this chapter, we have given a detailed description of some of these
technologies applications in smart healthcare.

2.2 Advanced Technologies Used in Smart Healthcare


2.2.1 AI in Smart Healthcare
AI works with the help of data from the past to make a decision as accurate
as possible for the future [15]. A common example of AI is our E-mail. We
have different labels for different types of mails. The AI algorithm asks users
to label some mails as primary, social, promotions and updates. Now on basis
of the user input, it automatically categorizes future mails into different labels
on its own.
Some applications of AI in healthcare are given below (Figure 2.1):
• Wellness monitoring: In the 21st century we have developed wear-
able gadgets like smartwatches which monitors our heart rate, SpO2
levels and even our stress levels using AI to ensure our health and
wellness [6, 7].
2.2 Advanced Technologies Used in Smart Healthcare 15

Figure 2.1 AI in healthcare

• Increased efficiency: In some cases, it was seen that the machines using
AI showed more accurate and fast results as compared to other methods
used to detect X-Rays, CT-Scans, etc. [8]
• Surgical robots: One of the most useful and life-changing uses of AI
in healthcare is through surgical robots. Nowadays, these robots assist
doctors [9]. But, in future they might replace the need for a doctor during
a mild operation.
• New pharmaceutical drug discovery: Based on the existing knowledge
of drugs that we have today the machines scan new combinations and
patterns to find out a new pharmaceutical drug.
• Decisions based on data: The AI works in such a way that it eases
doctor’s decision-making. If the doctors get stuck at some point during
an emergency, they can use AI to somewhat detect the consequences of
their next step.
16 Advanced Technologies Involved in Smart Healthcare

Some challenges faced by AI in healthcare are given below:


• Data collection: As we know that AI takes data goes through that data
and take decision based on data. So, it is very important to provide the
right data otherwise the decision would cause catastrophe.
• Training staff: Not everyone in the staff may be doctors, nurses or
helpers might be a techie. They might fail to handle the systems, which
could manipulate the results.
• Considering failures: The artificial intelligence technology must also
consider the wrong decisions from the data. It should not use something
that has caused some problem to the patient in the past.
• Patient’s trust: One major thing that artificial intelligence is lacking is
trust. If we ask patients and their family members to get operated on a
robot most of them would not trust it and would refuse to have surgery.

2.2.2 Cloud Computing in Smart Healthcare


Cloud Computing is a domain in IT Industry that provide all IT resources
online. The user need not buy physical hardware resources for computa-
tion and storage. In smart healthcare and telemedicine system, there is a
requirement of large storage for EHR (Electronic Healthcare Records) and
a fast-processing platform for analysis.
Hence, there is a need of using Cloud computing services in Smart
Healthcare for fast processing, large storage and high availability.

2.2.3 Cyber Security and Forensic in Smart Healthcare


This domain of Information Technologies deals with the security and safety
aspect of digital records stored on Cloud storage of smart healthcare and
telemedicine systems. Being a fully network-controlled system Security and
tolerance towards network attacks is one of the major requirements for smart
healthcare systems.
Designing effective security protocols, providing a highly secured authen-
tication scheme is a core responsibility of this domain of Information
technology.

2.2.4 IoT in Smart Healthcare


A patient’s interaction with a medical practitioner is largely limited to
the appointments with them [10]. Without the use of sensors or special
monitoring devices, there is no way of continuously monitoring the patient’s
health stats and recommending the necessary actions [11].
2.2 Advanced Technologies Used in Smart Healthcare 17

The IoT has made a revolution in many different fields and healthcare
is no different (Figure 2.2). This has brought home the idea of remote
monitoring and remote sensing of the health status and other vitals of a
patient, allowing medical experts to take actions immediately and on the fly.
Usage of sensors and other IoT devices in conjunction with cloud and big data
services has enabled technologists to devise some incredible solutions that
not only reduce the overall costs of healthcare but increase the expectancy
of life, provision better treatment opportunities and significantly increase the
overall satisfaction of the patients. With the ever-increasing fast-paced life,
continuous monitoring and alerting systems are required. Modern machinery
capable of reacting to changing stimuli is becoming the crying need of the
hour. IoT brings forth solutions that are capable of changing and adjusting to
changing stimuli and generating appropriate signals when needed.
Today, smart TV, smart Watch, AI-based camera sensing, AI-biometric,
smart refrigeration for sensitive chemicals, drugs and specimens, etc all

Figure 2.2 IoT in smart healthcare


18 Advanced Technologies Involved in Smart Healthcare

require dynamic systems [12, 16]. IoT helps them in it. In healthcare, mea-
surement of health vitals on a regular basis and then changing the required
plan of action according to the vitals recorded, continuously monitoring
the internal functioning and sophisticated measurements taken by precise
instruments in hospitals and clinics, safe and robust delivery of sensitive drugs
in environment-controlled environments, etc. all these problems can be solved
via IoT. These issues if not solved can cause losses of billions of dollars every
year.
• IoT device for monitoring vitals: These days’ fit bits have become
extensively popular. Similar and better IoT-based devices that are wear-
able and that can monitor vital health stats of a patient including blood
pressure, heart rate, glucose levels, thyroid levels, etc can be used for
personalised and customized care for patients. Devices like these keep a
check on the patient and can be used to alert the required doctor or nurse
in case needed. These devices will also be able to furnish continuous data
of the health vitals which will ultimately lead to better patient analysis.
• IoT in hospital equipment: Medical equipment attached with sensors
and other types of monitoring and tagging devices will help better
control and regulate the equipment even from a remote location. This
ensures that the medical equipment keeps running hassle-free and yet
be monitored and supervised even when nobody is physically present.
Heavy duty and expensive pieces of equipment including defibrillators,
oxygen pumps, heart rate monitoring systems, IV pumps, dialysis equip-
ment and so on and so forth can be given an additive attachment of
these IoT devices which will enable professionals to track their real-time
activity and location and take immediate necessary actions in real-time
Environment controlled chambers. Storage facilities can also be created
using IoT devices. This will help preserve specimens and chemicals that
would otherwise be destroyed by the unsanitary or harsh environment,
thereby causing humongous loss of manpower and money.
• IoT for pharmaceutical companies: Companies dealing with drugs
and their delivery and storage can use IoT devices for controlled envi-
ronment storage and delivery of drugs/specialized chemicals. Certain
pharmaceutical drugs or chemicals are extremely volatile or sensitive
hence they can be damaged by even the slightest changes in temperature
or humidity. IoT devices keeping a regular check on such environ-
ments create a safe zone for their storage and transportation.In addition,
IoT-based tracking of equipment is necessary. This is particularly helpful
when avoiding counterfeiting and more agile delivery.
2.2 Advanced Technologies Used in Smart Healthcare 19

Advantages of IoT in health industry


• Remote tracking: Real-time remote tracking using connected IoT
devices and smart indicators can detect illnesses, treat illnesses and save
lives via sending SOS signals in the event of a medical emergency.
• Reduced healthcare costs: For the matter of some mild medical con-
dition such as fever, infection, allergies, etc., one do not have to visit
a doctor physically. Rather one can sit at home and have a hassle-less
consult with a doctor.
• Cost-cutting/cost saving: After the implementation of IoT systems in
hospitals both, the customer (patient) and the hospital/Doctors can save
their cost of operations. The patient now does not have to travel miles
to reach a good doctor. The doctor can now also function from his/her
home reducing their cost of operation, which in turn would maximize
the profit.

Disadvantages of IoT in health industry


• Privacy: With the advancement in technology these days, there are an
increasing risk of data getting stolen, systems getting hacked and much
more, which can be used against the consumers.
• Expensive: The initial amount required to set up IoT systems,
machines are really high which could be a turn-off for a lot of
hospitals/organizations.
• Mechanical/software failure: A small failure in the machinery or
the software system can cause someone’s life. The data needs to be
monitored accurately.
Even though IoT-based solutions bring home a plethora of advantages, the
cost of building them is generally high. So many times, it might not be
possible. Overall, with the reduction in the prices of hardware every day
and in the light of innovation, IoT-based solutions will make the healthcare
industry much better.

2.2.5 Blockchain in Smart Healthcare


Healthcare, like any other industry, are extremely data intensive. Huge
amounts of data is generated and consumed every day. The supply chain of
pharmaceutical devices, drug delivery systems, health record management,
patient data management, etc., all have been run via un-automated computer
20 Advanced Technologies Involved in Smart Healthcare

Figure 2.3 Blockchain in healthcare

systems and need tedious paperwork. This kind of existing system is the root
cause of manual and administrative errors, flaws in the delivery pipeline,
loss of man-hours and money and increase in the overall costs. With these
traditional systems, becoming increasingly unreliable and costly, new solu-
tions to the problems at hand are the need of the hour. Here, Blockchain can
be used to provide an up-and-coming solution to existing issues [13, 14].
The healthcare industry suffers from mundane and rigorous manual tasks
that are cost-inefficient and time-consuming. Approximately thirty billion
transitions happen every year in the healthcare industry, of which about fifteen
billion are manually faxed, costing the industries involved in it, USD 250
billion. That’s not all, even with the cost being exceptionally high, more
than 60 % of the medical practitioners do not receive adequate and correct
information or in time. Miscommunications, delays and administrative errors
in the medical and healthcare processes and drug or patent-related data cause
about 400,000 deaths every year. On top of that, with professionals filling
more than 20,000 forms every year, each costing about USD 20, costs in
the industry surges even more. Manual documentation is not only costly but
highly prone to errors. In the following figure (Figure 2.3), we have shown
some improvement areas in healthcare using Blockchain.
Transparency is almost negligible when considering supply chains or
record management. Humongous amounts of data shared across parties and
its inadequate, inefficient and unreliable management along with the opaque-
ness in the pipeline of supply chains which have become a breeding ground
2.2 Advanced Technologies Used in Smart Healthcare 21

for drug counterfeiting, results in a loss of more than 200 billion dollars every
year in the U.S.A. All these problems combined make up for a significant loss
of life and money. Blockchain, as a technology, can solve a lot of these issues
by making existing processes more efficient and minimizing losses. Being
transparent, immutable and distributed, blockchain solutions can help reform
and modernize the healthcare system.
• Supply chain pipelines: In the pharmaceutical/drug or equipment deliv-
ery chains, the entire process can be made more streamlined and highly
efficient if blockchain is used. Blockchain can reduce the problem of
counterfeit products and make transactions more robust and transparent.
It will not only recuse frauds and cut losses but also increase efficiency
and overall profits.
• Procuring traceability and authenticity of products: Blockchain is
built on the foundations of transparency and security. Any organisation
willing to be a part of the supply chain and sell it’s products must
be trustworthy enough to be allowed by the authorities controlling the
blockchain-based system, to list their products. Once they do so, all
the data will be readily available and cannot be changed. Furthermore,
time stamping and real-time tracking enables a check on fraudery and
counterfeiting. Transactions becomes seamless and the authenticity of
products being exchanged become more apparent.
• Data and record management: Data management, in itself, is a tedious
task. Mixed with high importance data involving medical records, inef-
ficient dealings with the data, multiple records of the same data being
rendered by different parties using the same process, etc. will render the
management portion of the data useless. Lack of data sharing, absence
of authenticity and originality of data and unavailability of secure and
immutable storage causes huge problems in the healthcare industry.
Blockchain based record management and data organisation can relieve
us of many of these problems. With data security, immutability and
interoperability built into it, blockchain ensures no data breaching and
data infection, thereby ensuring robustness and correctness.
Even though blockchains are a great solution to many healthcare-based
problems, these solutions are not perfect [9]. It comes with its own set of
challenges. Blockchain requires expensive hardware and machinery to be
put in place. It requires fast machines for efficient computation so that data
availability is high and latency is low. Apart from that, the data that each
block in a blockchain can store is quite low. In addition, because medical data
22 Advanced Technologies Involved in Smart Healthcare

is generally quite large, it poses a challenge to manage ever-increasing quan-


tities of data. Overall, efforts can be made to ensure working solutions for
existing problems. Blockchain is a commendable candidate for building top-
notch modern solutions to problems that affect an industry dealing in billions
of dollars. Blockchain is an online ledger system that stores data/information
in such a way that it can’t be edited, changed or hacked. It is a very safe
and latest technology, which has a good future ahead. Since this technology
needs to tackle important data, it has been created in such a way that it cannot
tamper, with changed or deleted using some outside sources.
Following are some challenges for IoT in smart healthcare:
• Data blockage: Let’s say a person goes to hospital ‘A’ every time for
their health checkups. Now, hospital ‘A’ has all the reports and records
of the person. But, in a case of emergency if he/she is rushed to hospital
‘B’. When ‘B’ asks for the data and ‘A’ refuses to share the data.
• Data corruption: Consider a situation where the data stored with the
hospital or healthcare centre gets corrupted for some reason. Now the
data is no more with the hospital.
However, there are ways to change the data but it is secure. Since it is a new
technology, we can trust the technology.

2.3 Conclusion
Information Technology gave revolution in every sector of industry and
society. Healthcare is also a core sector, which needs advancement. Inte-
gration of the latest IT-based technologies in healthcare will help it from
becoming a smart healthcare system. AI, IoT and blockchain are some of the
advances IT based technologies that have already started their involvement
in the healthcare sector. Telemedicine and e-hospital are a reality now and
patients are connecting to the doctor using these online platforms and getting
prescriptions for these diseases without any physical movement.

References
[1] K. Kustwar, and R. Suman. (2020). ‘E-Health and telemedicine
in India: An overview on the health care need of the people.’
Journal of Multidisciplinary Research in Healthcare, 6(2), 25–36.
https://doi.org/10.15415/jmrh.2020.62004.
References 23

[2] A. Saha, et al., (2019). Review on ‘Blockchain technology based med-


ical healthcare system with privacy issues’. Security and Privacy. 2.
10.1002/spy2.83.
[3] S. Taneja, et al., (2019). ‘I-Doctor: An IoT based self patient’s health
monitoring system’, International Conference on Innovative Sustain-
able Computational Technologies, CISCT.
[4] A. Sharma, et al., (2018). ‘Health monitoring and management using
IoT devices in a Cloud Based Framework.’ In: 2018 International Con-
ference on Advances in Computing and Communication Engineering
(ICACCE), pp. 219–224.
[5] N. Kamdar, et al., (2020). Telemedicine: A digital interface for perioper-
ative anesthetic care, Anesthesia and analgesia: 30(2), p. 272–275, doi:
10.1213/ANE.0000000000004513.
[6] K.S. Hitesh, and J.C. Patni, (2020). ‘Pandemic diagnosis and analysis
using clinical decision support systems’, Journal of Critical Reviews.
[7] S. Gupta, and H.K. Sharma, (2021). ‘User anonymity based secure
authentication protocol for telemedical server systems’, International
Journal of Information and Computer Security.
[8] Shailender, and H.K. Sharma, (2018). ‘Digital cancer diagnosis with
counts of adenoma and luminal cells in plemorphic adenoma immunas-
tained healthcare system,’ IJRAR, 5(12).
[9] A. Joshi, et al., (2020). ‘Data mining in healthcare and predicting
obesity,’ in Proceedings of the Third International Conference on
Computational Intelligence and Informatics, pp. 877–888, Hyderabad,
India.
[10] J.C. Patni, et al., (2020). ‘Sensors based smart healthcare framework
using internet of things (IoT)’, International Journal of Scientific and
Technology Research 9(2), pp. 1228–1234.
[11] S. Purri, et al., (2017). ‘Specialization of IoT applications in health
care industries’, Proceedings IEEE International Conference Big Data
Analysis Computer Intelligence (ICBDAC), pp. 252–256.
[12] D.S.R. Krishnan, et al., (2018). ‘An IoT based patient health monitor-
ing system,’ International Conference on Advances in Computing and
Communication Engineering (ICACCE), p. 1–7.
[13] S. Salman, et al., (2020). A secure blockchain-based e-health records
storage and sharing scheme, Journal of Information Security and Appli-
cations, 55, 102590.
[14] H.M. Hussien, et al., (2019). A systematic review for enabling
of develop a blockchain technology in healthcare application:
24 Advanced Technologies Involved in Smart Healthcare

Taxonomy, substantially analysis, motivations, challenges, Recom-


mendations and future direction. Journal of Medical Systems,
43(10). doi:10.1007/s10916-019-1445-8.
[15] G. Negi, et al., (2021). Optimization of complex system reliability
using hybrid grey wolf optimizer. Decision making: Applications in
Management and Engineering, 4(2), 241–256.
[16] P. Koranga, et al., (2018). Image denoising based on wavelet transform
using visu thresholding technique. International Journal of Mathemati-
cal, Engineering and Management Sciences, 3(4), 444–449.
3
Role of Artificial Intelligence,
IoT and Blockchain in Smart Healthcare

Abstract
Information Technology has shown his presence in every sector which require
automation and intelligence. Tradition healthcare is also such a major sector
in which lots of advancement is needed. AI, IoT and Blockchain are the three
mains IT-based advanced technologies that are required at many phases of
converting traditional healthcare to smart healthcare.
In this chapter, we have described the involvement of some advanced
technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT) and
blockchain in smart healthcare and telemedicine.

Keywords: smart healthcare, e-hospital, telemedicine, artificial intelligence,


IoT, blockchain.

3.1 Introduction
The three major requirements of a smart healthcare system are data collec-
tion; data analysis and data security and all these three requirements can
be fulfilled by IoT, AI and Blockchain technologies. The use of AI-based
algorithms and software to replicate human cognition in the analysis, display
and comprehension of complicated medical and healthcare data is referred
to as AI in healthcare. AI is defined as the ability of computer algorithms
to make educated guesses based purely on input data. AI can be utilised to
perform the same tasks in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. It is
always preferable to prevent than cure. Artificial intelligence-based apps can
assist users in leading a healthy lifestyle and being proactive. When customers
realise, they have power over their own health, they are more motivated to live
a healthy lifestyle.

25
26 Role of Artificial Intelligence, IoT and Blockchain in Smart Healthcare

Remote surveillance in the health sector has been made possible by IoT-
enabled technologies which unleash the potential to safely and healthily
maintain patients and empower doctors to provide exceptional treatment.
The facilitation and efficiency of contacts with clinicians boosted patient
participation and satisfaction. In addition, remote health monitoring help
reduces hospital stay time and reduce re-admission. IoT offers healthcare,
family, doctors, hospital and insurance businesses. In IoT wearables and other
home-monitoring technology included in IoT can help doctors track patients’
health more effectively. Anyone can monitor patients’ adherence to treatment
regimens or any immediate need for medical care. IoT assists healthcare
professionals in being more attentive and proactive with patients.
The challenge of trust in a complicated setting is well solved by
Blockchain. We will give an example: at first, this technology and cryptocur-
rency was made viable since their use did not necessitate the involvement of
a centralised body. Previously, if we disagreed with the system’s operation,
we went to the bank and more often than not, we just trusted it because
the government was behind it. The entire practice of money exchange was
based on this, for the most part. We were able to construct a decentralised
system with a set of rules that everyone agreed on and that is very tough to
deceive using the Blockchain. The capacity to automate operations via smart
contacts is the second thing the Blockchain excels at. Even this, though, is a
contentious topic. Numerous technologies aid in the automation of operations
none of which are better or worse than the Blockchain. Initially, this technique
was used in the financial sector. Even though not everyone understands how
it should be used in this area, there is currently a mass of at least half of the
finished products.

3.2 Role AI in Smart Healthcare


All of us have been witnessing drastic technological improvement since the
20th century. From a time when we used to think about self-driving cars, we
now have access to the autopilot-driving feature in Tesla. We get personalized
feed on all our social media handles, such as YouTube or Instagram. Various
voice assistants such as Siri, Alexa have been made available to us. They
perform all the required tasks as soon as we instruct them. These are a
few examples from our daily lives where we can understand the use of AI
and data mining techniques [1]. Sometimes our lives are highly intertwined
with use cases of AI and we don’t even realize it. The definition acts as
a self-explanatory statement that implies that once we teach a machine
3.2 Role AI in Smart Healthcare 27

to solve a particular problem, it will become capable enough to solve all


other problems of a similar pattern and gradually improve itself. The word
intelligence in AI should not be mistaken with the machine performing
something very creative or clever. Using AI, the machine can assist doctors
and pathologists to diagnose a disease like cancer [2, 3]. It simply means
that machines are trained to do the same tasks that are performed by humans
and thus simulate human behaviour. The term intelligence consists of a few
factors:
1. Generalization learning: This implies that users will be able to perform
better even during situations that have not been encountered earlier.
2. Reasoning: This implies that the user will be able to draw conclusions
for the provided problems.
3. Perception: Analyzing features and relationships between objects.
Since the 1950s, this field has undergone extensive research. This technology
has certainly benefited people by solving some major issues that society was
facing. It has also paved the way to a lifestyle where people can use machines
to simplify routine tasks. There is no end to how AI is being used in various
sectors. Banks are using this technology to create chatbots that can interact
with customers 24/7 to solve their queries [4]. This method eliminates the
bound time frame that is followed by the traditional banking approach. Many
cases of the robotics field using AI to perform mundane tasks or tasks are
deleterious for humans. There are many instances where AI is used in the
healthcare industry. For instance, various surgeries now are AI-assisted. Drug
discoveries that use deep learning are very precise and require considerably
fewer resources like time and money. Early detection of contagious diseases
has been possible due to machine learning. Thus, it is rightly said, ‘Machine
intelligence is the last invention that humanity will ever need to make’.
As mentioned, machine learning has been used in the domain of health-
care to detect diseases at an early stage. In addition, deep learning has been
used for discovering medicinal drugs with comparatively fewer resources
[15]. But what exactly are machine learning and deep learning? People
generally tend to use these three terms interchangeably. So how are they
related to artificial intelligence? Machine learning is a concept in which
machines are not manually programmed, instead they gradually learn from
the data and past experiences. It is a subset of AI and acts as the basis for
data science. Machine learning models are being widely adopted in various
fields such as technology, science, etc. One main reason for the introduction
of machine learning was that people in some sectors were facing issues.
28 Role of Artificial Intelligence, IoT and Blockchain in Smart Healthcare

Researchers in the field of neuroscience faced problems while designing


operation models of the brain. Secondly, it received widespread acceptance
because it makes decisions based on data provided to the machine. This
data acts as evidence for future reference. Deep learning in essence is a
neural network that consists of various layers. It requires a large amount of
data to learn and simulate the behaviour of the human brain and then make
intelligent decisions and conclusions on its own. As machine learning is a
subset of artificial intelligence, deep learning is further a subset of machine
learning. This brings us to the conclusion of a hierarchy wherein AI can be
imagined as a circle inside which we have a circle that represents machine
learning. Further, we have another smaller circle inside machine learning that
represents deep learning.
Technology has been the base for rapid development in all spheres. Even
when it comes down to medicine and healthcare, it is believed that technology
would fundamentally change the way we receive and deliver care. To under-
stand this, consider this example of the number of diabetic patients around
the globe. So according to data, there are 415 million diabetic patients in this
world, out of which 62 million people reside in India. Diabetes further causes
the person to be at risk for diseases, such as heart disease, kidney disease or
vision loss. As far as the problem of vision loss due to diabetes is concerned,
there are only 15,000 eye doctors for 62 million diabetic patients. Due to such
a small number of eye specialists, about half of the diabetic people suffer
from some form of vision loss before they are diagnosed, even when the
disease is preventable. This situation could entirely change once AI enters the
picture. Through AI, algorithms are developed that will automatically detect
eye disease from the pictures that are taken. This will solve our problem of
millions of patients relying on few specialized eye doctors. This technology
can be used in every part of our country. This implies that people living in
rural areas who do not have access to specialized healthcare will also be able
to take benefit from this initiative. Therefore, people will not have to travel
long distances and sacrifice their work for receiving basic health needs. Apart
from these problems, AI can also help people with low hearing or people who
do not speak the same language as the doctor. This can be done by translating
and documenting all that has been said by the doctor in their native language.
One more example where AI is a cut above the traditional methods
is for detecting cancer. AI can be used to detect lung cancer and breast
cancer with an accuracy that meets or even beats the accuracy obtained by
radiologists. These examples give us an idea that AI can revolutionize the
industry of healthcare and benefit billions of people throughout the globe.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The man among the
monkeys; or, Ninety days in apeland
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at
www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will
have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
this eBook.

Title: The man among the monkeys; or, Ninety days in apeland

Author: Léon Gozlan

Illustrator: Gustave Doré

Release date: May 13, 2022 [eBook #68059]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Ward, Lock and Tyler, 1873

Credits: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at


https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian
Libraries)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAN AMONG


THE MONKEYS; OR, NINETY DAYS IN APELAND ***
THE MAN AMONG THE MONKEYS;
OR,

NINETY DAYS IN APELAND.

THE ADVENTURES OF POLYDORUS MARASQUIN, THE MAN AMONG THE MONKEYS.


BEETON’S BOY’S OWN LIBRARY.

THE
MAN AMONG THE MONKEYS;
OR,
NINETY DAYS IN APELAND.
TO WHICH ARE ADDED
THE PHILOSOPHER AND HIS MONKEYS,
THE PROFESSOR AND THE CROCODILE,
AND OTHER
STRANGE STORIES OF MEN AND ANIMALS.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS,
MANY OF THEM BY

GUSTAVE DORÉ.

LONDON:
WARD, LOCK, AND TYLER, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1873.
CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
Origin of my family name of Marasquin.—Mistake in this
respect on the part of my ambitious Grandfather.—
My Ancestors’ profession honourable, but
dangerous.—Mine the same.—A Tiger deprives me
of my Father, whose Business I carry on.—My
Fondness for Animals, and my skill in stuffing them.
—The terrible Tricks which they play me.—The
Malay Pirates more untamable than my Animals.—
The English Stations founded to destroy them are
devastated by Yellow Fever and something else.—
Vice-Admiral Campbell visits my Menagerie.—The
rare and curious Animals it contained.—Baboons
and Chimpanzees.—Passions and rivalries.—An
Ape as wicked as a Human Being.—My Mother
perishes in the Flames.—I determine on a voyage to
Oceania.—I charter a Chinese Junk, and find it
manned by Pirates.—We encounter a fearful
Tempest Page 9

CHAPTER II.
We are Shipwrecked.—I alone escape.—I find myself on Page 27
an unknown island.—A strange form appears to me
and vanishes.—A deluge of Apes.—I am cudgelled
with a rattan cane.—Am saved at length by my
cravat.—I am parched with thirst.—I discover water.
—Four thousand of us drink in company.—
Ingenious way of procuring fruit from the top of a tall
tree.—Two valets-de-chambre, such as are seldom
seen in Europe.—I miraculously escape their care

CHAPTER III.
I am attacked with delirium.—I set out on a journey of
discovery in the dead of night.—I encounter a boa,
and a bat with gigantic wings.—I reach the sea
shore.—Simplicity of the oyster; acuteness of the
Ape.—I hoist a signal, and then fall asleep from
sheer exhaustion Page 44

CHAPTER IV.
I have a very agitated dream.—During my waking
moments I unconsciously commit a murder.—At
night time I encounter a strange apparition in the
middle of the forest.—A great light illumines the air.
—I advance towards it, buoyed up with hope.—It
suddenly disappears.—The dawn discloses to me a
most singular sight.—I witness the proceedings of a
court-martial the members composing which have
each four hands.—Disgraceful corruption of justice.
—Ridiculous parody on the manners and institutions
of the human race Page 52

CHAPTER V.
The court-martial breaks up.—I secretly follow the Page 66
members of it.—I distinguish some houses between
the trees, and believe myself to be at last among my
fellow-men.—My hopes are crushed by discovering
the devastated condition of the settlement.—I meet
with Saïmira and Mococo, the latter in captivity.—I
recognise in the president of the court-martial one of
my two baboons of Macao.—This discovery troubles
me, the more so when I find that Karabouffi’s power
is supreme.—Foreseeing the peril I should be in if
recognised by him, I hide myself in a grotto.—I am
visited by Saïmira.—Weariness becomes at length
more intolerable than danger.—The light already
seen reappears.—I leave my retreat in search of it

CHAPTER VI.
Finding a volcano.—New peril to which I am exposed.—
The merchant is recognised by his old merchandise.
—Three guttural cries.—The living garland.—It
swings to and fro, and then performs a furious
rotatory movement over the crater of a blazing
volcano.—My thoughts at this moment.—I am flung
to the ground, and swoon away.—On recovering, I
am ushered into the presence of Karabouffi the
First, whom I find transformed into a bird.—Monkey
scribes and living telegraphic communication Page 73

CHAPTER VII.
Bell-ringing by the Monkeys.—Disorder in Monkey Villas.
—Hungry, I discover stores.—His Majesty in a jar of
quinces.—Scrambling for Nuts.—Monkeys tipsy.—
Fear of their intoxicated revels.—Night falls as I am
in the midst of a terrible uproar.—I discover candles
and lucifer matches.—The Monkeys find them also.
—Candle dance by the Apes Page 83

CHAPTER VIII.
An energetic pianiste.—Vigorous dancers.—A bevy of Page 91
quadrumanous beauties.—The parasol polka.—
Amatory tomfooleries.—I am compelled to take part
in a new musical air.—Am commanded to climb up
a tall pole.—Am forced to jump through hoops,
throw somersaults, and cut capers.—Am indebted
to Saïmira for a respite

CHAPTER IX.
I barricade myself in.—I am besieged.—The verandah
becomes a fort.—What I discover at the end of a
forgotten room.—Lord Campbell’s journal.—What
this journal says.—The Malay pirates and the Sultan
of Sooloo.—Three hundred junks.—A formidable
hunt.—Death of a mysterious and colossal mandrill.
—Explanation of the white skeleton.—Torture of a
man compelled to drink nothing but excellent old
wine.—A poignard stuck in the sand.—The last fête
at the station.—How it terminates.—End of an
unfinished journal Page 102

CHAPTER X.
A hundred bottles of champagne not worth a glass of
water.—My clothes leave me.—I commence the
combat.—Great fight of a man against an island full
of apes.—The verandah about to fall.—It does not
last any longer.—A skin saves me Page 118

CHAPTER XI.
Whence this enchanted skin comes.—I owe to it my life
and the crown.—In what manner I govern.—I learn
the fate of the English station Page 127

CHAPTER XII.
Royal happiness troubled by a rent.—I am more and
more adored by my subjects.—A cloud in the sky.—
Sinister preoccupation.—My kingdom for a pair of
trousers!—Supreme joy of being an animal.—My
happiness again troubled.—A fatal tear Page 137

CHAPTER XIII.
Deliverance.—I see my native land again.—O Macao!— Page 144
My immortality
Herr von Schlieffen and His Monkeys 153
The Professor and the Crocodile 175
Tree Life in General, and Monkeys in Particular 195
The Monkey amongst Men, or the House in
Regent’s Park 247
Monkey Legends and Anecdotes 287
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
The Adventures of Polydorus Marasquin, the Man
among the Monkeys Frontispiece
PAGE.
Clouds upon clouds of apes, of all forms, colours, and
sizes, clambering up the trees, rolling themselves
among the branches like squirrels, or taking
possession of the ground about me 30
Quick as lightning, he seized the branch of cane
which I had thrown on the ground, and before I
had time to place myself in a posture of defence,
showered blow after blow on my arms and legs 33
The banks of the lake were covered along their entire
length by those very apes who had so pitilessly
tormented, jeered at, and beaten me 36
While he was speaking, these unfortunate wretches
trembled all over, from head to foot 63
They went to spend their honeymoon in an isolated
spot which I had selected for them 130
After having dug a trench seven feet long, I interred
myself with all possible precautions 132
Covered with my tattered and well-worn skin, but still 147
holding sufficiently together for me to be taken for
a mandrill
Bonnet and Macaque Monkeys 252
Rhesus Monkey and Young 253
Anubis Baboon 255
Wanderoo Monkey 255
Black-faced Spider Monkey 259
Squirrel 263
Squirrel Monkey, and Tee-Tee 263
Ring-tailed Lemur 266
The Aye-Aye 268
THE MAN AMONG THE
MONKEYS.
CHAPTER I.
Origin of my family name of Marasquin.—Mistake in this respect on the part of my
ambitious Grandfather.—My Ancestors’ profession honourable, but
dangerous.—Mine the same.—A Tiger deprives me of my Father, whose
Business I carry on.—My Fondness for Animals, and my skill in stuffing them.
—The terrible Tricks which they play me.—The Malay Pirates more untamable
than my Animals.—The English Stations founded to destroy them are
devastated by Yellow Fever and something else.—Vice-Admiral Campbell
visits my Menagerie.—The rare and curious Animals it contained.—Baboons
and Chimpanzees.—Passions and rivalries.—An Ape as wicked as a Human
Being.—My Mother perishes in the Flames.—I determine on a voyage to
Oceania.—I charter a Chinese Junk, and find it manned by Pirates.—We
encounter a fearful Tempest.

I was born at Macao, in China, and am descended from one of those


brave adventurers who, under the leadership of the celebrated
Vasco de Gama, boldly left Lisbon, towards the end of the fifteenth
century, to conquer the Indies.
If I have good reason to congratulate myself on the accuracy of my
pedigree, I have, nevertheless, no plausible grounds for believing
that I am descended from one of those sons of noble families who
were attached by the sole tie of glory to their illustrious chief. My
grandfather, it is true, used sometimes to say that our name of
Marasquin was a corruption of Marascarenhas, one of the greatest
of names among those adventurous Portuguese who followed Vasco
de Gama from the banks of the Tagus to the end of Asia; but I have
always had serious doubts upon this score.
Moreover, my worthy grandfather himself, Nicholas Marasquin,
was to my knowledge never anything more than an industrious
trader, established at Macao. My father, Juan Perez Marasquin, was
pretty much the same. To him I owe this testimony—that the extent
of his ambition, during a lifetime, too short, alas! to my great regret,
was simply to pass for an honest man, a good Christian, and a loyal
bird-fancier.
This, then, was his profession; I do not blush for it, although
certain persons, through ignorance, or actuated by jealousy, have
sought to reduce it to the level of a licensed dealer in game and
poultry.
Even without descending so low as this, it would still be very unfair
to regard the bird-fancier’s profession—which, by the way, became
in later years my own—as restricted to the mere sale of birds, such
as we know it ordinarily to be followed in Europe. My father
possessed in his vast menagerie one of the finest collections of
which the Portuguese Indies could boast, for it comprised not merely
birds, but all kinds of rare and curious animals. Sumatra, Java,
Borneo, New Guinea, were all represented there by specimens of
some of the strangest and most exquisitely formed creatures which
inhabit in their native state the almost impenetrable forests of the
eastern hemisphere. The profession of naturalist, when exercised on
this scale, is really a very lucrative one, for the taste of the European
colonists, and the almost insane passion of the Chinese, for these
interesting products of nature, are matters of notoriety.
To his trade in living animals my father added the art and mystery
of stuffing them when dead, which was not the least lucrative
profession of the two. He had given me lessons in this learned and
delicate art of restoring to defunct birds and quadrupeds not alone
the precise forms but the very attitudes which they affected during
lifetime. Thanks to the counsels of so excellent a demonstrator, I
acquired a remarkable skill in taxidermy; and you will find further on,
if you read through this account of my adventures, that I was
indebted to this useful and beautiful science for my escape from the
tragical end which at one period menaced me.
Our house had prospered for more than a century at Macao. My
father, on succeeding to the collection, added considerably to it, and
thanks to the intelligent care of the good, economical, and devoted
woman he espoused, he managed to raise his establishment to the
very highest position in that particular branch of industry in which he
was engaged.
But if this business yields, as I have already said, such rich
rewards, on the other hand it is attended not only with difficulties, but
with perils as well, as I have had only too many opportunities of
proving. It is carried on under conditions of which most people are
ignorant. It is not sufficient for a dealer in animals to purchase a
bargain, and then to sell it again at a profit. It is requisite that he
should go the length of procuring in a wild state those rarer kinds of
animals which, when obtained, are certain to realise a good price.
Hence the indispensable necessity of being at once both merchant
and hunter, or rather of being first of all hunter before becoming
merchant.
My father used to go himself to hunt most of the animals in which
he dealt—a laborious kind of occupation, which I, in my turn, learnt
to follow, whilst accompanying him on his expeditions—sometimes to
the coast of China—sometimes to the jungles of the Isle of Hainan,
so prolific in wild animals—sometimes as far as Japan, in spite of the
obstacles and perils of a navigation bravely undertaken in barques of
slender construction, spite of the Malay pirates—those veritable
sharks, who swallow everything that crosses their path; and spite of
the cruel punishments which used formerly to await those whom the
Chinese and Japanese chanced to find trespassing on their sacred
territories.
My father was in the habit of bringing back from those distant
expeditions—and later I had the satisfaction of bringing back with
him—panthers, tigers, boas, leopards, and, above all, innumerable
varieties of apes. It was during one of our last hunting expeditions in
the Island of Formosa that my father, assailed by a young tiger,
which he was on the point of enveloping in a net so as to capture it
alive, had half a shoulder and a portion of a thigh carried off by a
blow of the brute’s paw. I had the gratification of defending him and
protecting him from the further rage of the furious creature; and had,
moreover, the satisfaction of carrying him back with me to Macao,
though I had not the happiness of seeing him live. Badly tended by
the doctors of the country, he languished for a couple of years with
wounds which they did not know how to cicatrise, and died at length
after undergoing the most frightful sufferings. Just before he drew his
last breath in my arms, he begged of me not to continue in his
profession. I promised him I would not; but as he had left me nothing
else to live upon and to support my poor mother, and as, to speak
frankly, I had no taste for any other kind of pursuit, I was compelled
to break my promise. You will see from the tale which you are about
to peruse the fearful punishment I brought upon myself by so doing.
I stuck, then, to my father’s business, and, in order to prove to the
valuable connection acquired by long years of good and loyal
management how anxious I was to carry it on with energy, I
increased the number of my examples of rare animals, and sent afar
experienced hunters charged to bring back with them, to the
latitudes of the Indies, specimens hitherto unknown. Being satisfied
by long experience that luxury dazzled the eye, and consequently
attracted the attention of buyers, I set to work to renovate the interior
of my bazaar. Bronze and gilding were had recourse to, to relieve the
too apparent simplicity of my cages. An English cleanliness reigned
throughout all parts of the establishment, which, in the evening, I
lighted up with gas, a dazzling novelty in those days for Macao.
Here I ought to mention a singular trait in my character. I was
remarkably fond of animals at first, by reason of my benevolent
organisation; afterwards, as a natural result of the unremitting study
which I had been obliged to make of their forms, features,
movements, customs, manners, instincts, passions, and intelligence;
their sympathies and antipathies; their caprices, maladies, and
affinity, more or less expressed with man, with a thousand other
attributes essentially belonging to their nature, which is perhaps still
more obscure and mysterious than our own.
I had pushed my observations so far on those particular beings
with whom it is now-a-days maintained we have a certain affinity, that
I could easily recognise among them those whose instinctive
dispositions corresponded in a measure with our own, and who
would have become, for example, barristers, if any such profession
as that of the Bar existed amongst apes, for they were always
gesticulating, haranguing, and arguing. I recognised again such as
would have been doctors, among those who were continually
occupying themselves with the physical condition of their fellows,
examining their tongues, their throats, and the inside of their eyes;
others who would certainly have become comedians, for they were
perpetually making grimaces, and playing and dancing from morning
to night; others again who would have made first-rate astronomers,
for they invariably arranged themselves so as to have the sun
always shining on the tips of their noses. I recognised, moreover,
with a similar infallibility, those who possessed a taste for commerce,
apes who made a point of collecting together all the fruit and corn
which fell from the negligent hands of their fellows, and of piling it up
in a corner. In like manner I distinguished the misers, the
spendthrifts, the madcaps, the bullies, the good fathers and mothers,
the mothers given to flirting, and the incorrigibly bad sons; and
particularly thieves of every shade, from the sharper moving in good
society, who cheats at the card-table, to the more daring robber who
takes to the highway. I should have said of the one, “Here is an ape
who would loll in his carriage if he had only a white cravat;” of the
other, that “he would be safe to be hung if he only happened to wear
a coat.”
As apes are far more saleable animals when their natural talent for
imitation is developed by the aid of education, I made a point of
putting most of those in my collection through a course of instruction,
the object of which was to render them more attractive and engaging
in the eyes of intending purchasers. I taught them, for instance, to
throw somersaults, to jump through hoops, to dance, to play the
tambourine, to march, to fence, and to salute in approved military
style. Many among them, I admit, were unwilling scholars, and
chafed and fretted under the tuition they received; some so much so,
indeed, that, as is commonly the case with members of the human
family, they could only be persuaded to prosecute their studies by
the lively fear of a little wholesome correction. All this, however,
arose simply from their not knowing so well as I did what was really
for their own advantage.
Spite of the many little tiffs which arose between us in our several
capacities of master and scholars, I conceived, in my character of

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