Thigh bone. Thigh bone connected to the knee bone. Knee bone connected to the foot bone. I hear the word of the Lord!
In its simple wisdom, the old spiritual “Dem Bones” by James Weldon Johnson neatly summarizes the true nature of the body and the reality of health care.
Modern western medicine has viewed health care as largely a matter of symptom management, though occasionally the cure is worse than the illness. This is not because of stupidity or greed particularly, but rather a by-product of our point of view about the body. Instead of recognizing the biological integrity of our cells and organs, when illness strikes we tend to objectify and isolate parts of the body from one another. While this objective separation may make treatment appear easier, western medical myopia can result in unanticipated negative side effects.
The human body is composed of tens of trillions of cells, each cell type highly differentiated and capable of communication with other cells in the body. Accordingly, there is a constant and continuous internal conversation happening within each of us, a nonverbal cellular conference of chemical and electrical instant messaging carrying voluminous information and instructions. From time to time, this bodily chorus reaches our conscious awareness and we feel hungry, thirsty, tired, joyful, depressed and so on. Often times, these feelings and sensations seem to arise from out of nowhere. In any event, those messages that reach consciousness as feelings or pain are what we could call the “gross” messages of the body, ones so substantial that they cannot be ignored.
We miss, however, the mostly silent torrent of messages constantly being exchanged within our many trillion-celled being. If we have a headache, we tend to think there is a problem in our head, but a headache can be a symptom of a problem originating elsewhere in the body. If our finger does not heal, we assume we have a problem with our finger, but the actual cause may be in the liver. If we cut our toe it’s likely that every cell in the body is informed and reacts in some way, subtle or dramatic.
Western medicine is finally coming to the realization that everything about the body is fully integrated and interconnected. Isolating one organ, let alone one cell from another, is the mere product of our imagination and constitutes an enormous misunderstanding.
Our perception of the world is of three types: (a) we are completely bewildered, (b) we misunderstand and get things mixed up or (c) we achieve partial understanding. Complete understanding, it seems, is reserved solely for the omniscient or divine. As western medicine moves from misunderstanding to partial understanding, it has come around to seeing connections between the dots. The picture that emerges is stunningly complex. Despite similarities, in its final composition each living being is unique, no two exactly alike, and each responds to the world in its own unique way.
For a long while health care was viewed as a spiritual or supernatural issue, while at yet another point leeches and bleeding were deemed proper treatment. Today, western medical treatment is about physical and chemical causes and cures. In the final analysis, though, everything about our bodies is connected and nothing can truly be divided from the whole, except, that is, in our own minds.
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