Prevention
Prevention: Health is wealth!
Prevention: improving the state of ill-functioning organs.
“Whatever you do, put your soul in it” (Apostle Paul, Letter to the Colossians 3:23)
The history of prevention
The Chinese Caesars paid their doctors heftily as long as they remained healthy, then they executed them. Maybe this was a factor which made the thought of prevention not so popular in the history of medicine. No wonder it started becoming known only 100 years ago by the public. Decades have passed while prevention became part of the practice of medicine. However, this time was not enough to bring about a shift in the viewpoint of the people.
As all living organisms, the human body also needs healing from ancient times. The first healers were the shamans. From the third millennium BC, the slightly sophisticated medical practice was recorded by civilizations. The Greek knew neither anatomy, nor physiology, they identified health with gods. Galenos, Roman doctor has performed autopsies, but from the time when the empire turned Christian, the fields of religion and medicine overlapped. From the 12th century, doctors were trained at universities.
In the 19th century, when contagions and epidemics still decimated the population, the fighting ground of doctors and illnesses remained the human body, and those illnesses which seemed incurable still seemed as wrath of God.
100 years ago, people feared the lethal illnesses, in addition, the rate of newborn deaths was high. In the meantime, the development of basic sciences brought about an impressive change in the quality of life. At the beginning of the 20th century, developed countries handled health care as a priority. New conceptions were born, including the theory of prevention which proved to be useful. All in all, people were healthier, but the elongated life span bore new illnesses. The pharmaceutical industry has developed a lot, the antibiotics and vaccination proved to be an effective weapon: the lethal pathogens became less deadly or neutralized.
The idea of prevention started to spread, the viewpoint shifted by the second half of the 20th century, however, the budget on health care never proved to be enough. Prevention became a “fashion” with certain slogans associated with it like ‘Why do we have to wait until people fall ill?’, ‘Isn’t prevention better?’ It turned out that indeed prevention is better, and even cheaper than the treatment of the fully developed illness. So, spending on health is more economic when the illness has not fully developed.
It also became known that those who hope for a cure only from the doctor will not be completely healthy, since today’s illnesses are mainly caused by the patient’ lifestyle itself. As Hippocrates had already put it more than 2000 years ago: “the patient has to confront the illness together with the doctor.”
In our developing world, we increasingly take care of maintaining our health, appropriate eating habits, and active lifestyle. While we do everything we can in order to be healthy, we do not have any information on whether we really are healthy or not. Our fast-paced lifestyle, the radical change in the ingredients of consumer products, and the inevitable aging all contribute to the changes in our body. To be well informed about their state of health, one should attend health screenings regularly.
Prevention: improving the state of ill-functioning organs.
“Whatever you do, put your soul in it” (Apostle Paul, Letter to the Colossians 3:23)
The history of prevention
The Chinese Caesars paid their doctors heftily as long as they remained healthy, then they executed them. Maybe this was a factor which made the thought of prevention not so popular in the history of medicine. No wonder it started becoming known only 100 years ago by the public. Decades have passed while prevention became part of the practice of medicine. However, this time was not enough to bring about a shift in the viewpoint of the people.
As all living organisms, the human body also needs healing from ancient times. The first healers were the shamans. From the third millennium BC, the slightly sophisticated medical practice was recorded by civilizations. The Greek knew neither anatomy, nor physiology, they identified health with gods. Galenos, Roman doctor has performed autopsies, but from the time when the empire turned Christian, the fields of religion and medicine overlapped. From the 12th century, doctors were trained at universities.
In the 19th century, when contagions and epidemics still decimated the population, the fighting ground of doctors and illnesses remained the human body, and those illnesses which seemed incurable still seemed as wrath of God.
100 years ago, people feared the lethal illnesses, in addition, the rate of newborn deaths was high. In the meantime, the development of basic sciences brought about an impressive change in the quality of life. At the beginning of the 20th century, developed countries handled health care as a priority. New conceptions were born, including the theory of prevention which proved to be useful. All in all, people were healthier, but the elongated life span bore new illnesses. The pharmaceutical industry has developed a lot, the antibiotics and vaccination proved to be an effective weapon: the lethal pathogens became less deadly or neutralized.
The idea of prevention started to spread, the viewpoint shifted by the second half of the 20th century, however, the budget on health care never proved to be enough. Prevention became a “fashion” with certain slogans associated with it like ‘Why do we have to wait until people fall ill?’, ‘Isn’t prevention better?’ It turned out that indeed prevention is better, and even cheaper than the treatment of the fully developed illness. So, spending on health is more economic when the illness has not fully developed.
It also became known that those who hope for a cure only from the doctor will not be completely healthy, since today’s illnesses are mainly caused by the patient’ lifestyle itself. As Hippocrates had already put it more than 2000 years ago: “the patient has to confront the illness together with the doctor.”
In our developing world, we increasingly take care of maintaining our health, appropriate eating habits, and active lifestyle. While we do everything we can in order to be healthy, we do not have any information on whether we really are healthy or not. Our fast-paced lifestyle, the radical change in the ingredients of consumer products, and the inevitable aging all contribute to the changes in our body. To be well informed about their state of health, one should attend health screenings regularly.
