More about Vitalism
Virtually every single disease will succumb to an increase in the vitality of the patient. The ones that will not are those in which the very blueprint of the person is distorted.
Most of the world’s health systems make use of vitality, or vital force. However, the health system which most people in the west have grown up with - that of western medicine - does not. Even so, life expectancy in the west has increased and is still increasing, and some diseases have been eradicated. Does this mean that vitality and vital force are not necessary to healing? Or that taking them into account is not so important?
Some history: after the Renaissance, science began to see the body as a mechanical object. And every time the functioning of an organ was understood it was believed that vitalistic models of health were diminished and Science was somehow empowered. This was only the view of scientists though. But it was still true that the vital force, spirit and soul were seen as the domain of religion and problems involving them were dealt with by the clergy. Disease was increasingly believed to be caused by external influences and not the product of God’s judgement. This may not have been true of the ordinary person, however, who still saw an illness as the just deserts of a bad act. Indeed, even today, some people will say they know that the reason they are ill is that they have done something to cause their illness. As one of my patients said: “I was an emotional mess, I was behaving badly.... something had to give. And it did. I got MS.” And are these people wrong to think like this?
Western medicine says all illness comes from bugs and viruses or the body attacking itself. The vitalistic argument says bugs and viruses are there but they are not the cause of the illness. If they were the cause everyone exposed to the bugs would get ill and that just doesn't happen.
There is another cause that comes before the bugs get a look in. and that cause is a weakness in the vitality. One of the strange anomalies within western medicine is that it finds it difficult to even measure health. For a system that is obsessed with measuring not measuring the health of a patient gives rise to ridiculous statements such as: “The operation was a complete success but unfortunately the patient died of pneumonia a week later.”
If the vitality of the patient was monitored before and after the operation a different result could have been achieved. But to not take responsibility for the outcome and claim success in the operation shows a low level in understanding what health really is.
For a science, western medicine actually has a very hard time defining terms which at first glance appear easy to understand. This is because western scientists do not really know what life is. Not only that but doctors very often don’t even know what death is. The question is crucial to understanding life, yet doctors often have to refer to the law court when there is a disagreement between themselves and their patient’s family.
The ability to measure something is useful. But to deny the usefulness of vitality (or love, humour, empathy and so on) because you can not measure them will cause everyone’s health to suffer.
Life expectancy may have increased due to western medicine, but that does not mean that the health of most people has improved as well. Without bringing vitality into the equation you will never be able to tell if ‘average health’ has increased or not.
More about vitalism