RESUMO

This article presents a fundamentally novel approach to an urgent medico-social problem of providing the timely medical care. To maintain people's health and life in their everyday activities, a new concept of the medical instrument-making industry was put forward. This concept was developed in terms of the theory of functional systems, which revealed the universal rules of self-regulation of bodily functions. The practical realization of the above-mentioned concept involved the construction, patenting, and production of a number of original devices capable of warning the patient about disorders in basic bodily functions. These devices included a Heart Protection System, a Stress Doser, a Physiological Clock, a Ration Controller, and a Mother-Fetus Controller. They can all be regarded as informational household microprocessor-based instruments of the 21^st century.