Health and Disease: History of the Concepts
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Mostly, the hypothesis that diseases are caused by the exposure to causative agents in the external environment is what public health is based on. Despite the fact that it has been successful in the primary prevention of diseases, an overall theory of the origin of human diseases cannot be found in books regarding health. Today, a disease can be defined as the way a human being reacts to the failure of coping with one or more changes in its body. Contemporary medicine also continues to increasingly face the task of not only overcoming illnesses but also keeping people healthy (“Health and Disease: I. History of the Concepts – Dictionary definition of Health and Disease: I. History of the Concepts | Encyclopedia.com: FREE online dictionary,” n.d.). This aspect is what makes the rehabilitation and prevention of illness play a crucial role besides curative therapies.
With this, health and disease cannot be taken as mere medical terms but are important themes in philosophy, psychology, arts as well as sociology that give medicine its anthropological character of dealing with the destiny of humans as well as nature. It has been hard to come up with a universal definition of health and disease as they appear as physical, psychological, spiritual and sociological phenomena that can only be addressed through normative and descriptive concepts despite the fact that the two terms have not been differentiated well in the formulation of ideas historically (“origins of human disease: a short story on ‘where diseases come from?,” n.d.).
Previously, sickness and disease were seen as either a liquid or solid body component or the way the body was related to the soul. Societies also had different interpretations of physical and mental disorders and the way they treated them showed the cultural dimension they had taken diseases (“origins of human disease: a short story on ‘where diseases come from?,” n.d.). It was believed by the primitive people that it was a must for one to undergo diseases and illnesses as history shows the early humans with bones that had disturbances and fractures, a clear indication of the illnesses they also underwent. Additionally, nature and religion was related to sickness in the ancient times and thus showing that the ideas might have been derived from similar sources.
Therefore, humans are not only tasked with determining what is termed as health and disease but also are involved in determining the experiences of illness and come up with ways of responding to them. Additionally, the concept of disease and health is crucial as they influence the approaches and aims of medical treatment. This is what makes a technologically and mechanically structured understanding of therapy as well as the therapeutic relationships of diseases (“Health and Disease: I. History of the Concepts – Dictionary definition of Health and Disease: I. History of the Concepts | Encyclopedia.com: FREE online dictionary,” n.d.). Moreover, with the word illness referring to the personal or the subjective nature of a disease while a disease refers to the medical nature of a person having a physiological abnormality, then is likely for an individual to be sick but have no disease and also have a disease but not sick.
From the above discussion of the past and present have to say about the concepts of health, disease, illness, and medicine, it is possible to state that the historical success of public health has been one of the factors that have led to the change in these concepts (Czeresnia & Soares, 2017). This is because; this success has shown that it is hard for people to avoid the external environment that causes the diseases and illness as they depend on it for survival. Therefore, new approaches towards the prevention of illnesses and development of mechanisms of interfering with the causative agents of a disease before a detectable disease has occurred have helped in remedying humans from illnesses. Technological advancement in the public health sector is another factor that has led to the change from the ancient concepts of disease, illness, and health as medicines, as well as symptoms of different diseases, have been studied thus making the identification of diseases easier (Czeresnia & Soares, 2017).
References
Czeresnia, D., & Soares, T. C. (2017). Health and Disease, Concepts of. International Encyclopedia of Public Health, 381-384. doi:10.1016/b978-0-12-803678-5.00182-x
Health and Disease: I. History of the Concepts – Dictionary definition of Health and Disease: I. History of the Concepts | Encyclopedia.com: FREE online dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.encyclopedia.com/science/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/health-and-disease-i-history-concepts
The origins of human disease: a short story on ‘where diseases come from? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2465528/
