All over the world, in modern times, when
people fall ill, their only questions is why am I ill? How do I get better? Throughout history the answer has been sought
but if you look at any scholarly books or articles, still the answer is being
sought but at the same time answer has also been provided through a mixture of
natural, spiritual and moral meanings.
People have rarely understood illness or disease even in the modern
times. Most of all they have never
understood that they are the cause of their illness and that they need to take
step back to understand why they fall ill or have cancer type of disease.
In many ancient societies, it was presumed
that the spirits and gods were believed to make their presence known
through disease. All most all over the world, the treatment involved attempts
to satisfy these spirits and gods with ritual chanting or sacrifice, though
this was often combined with direct treatment of the sick person. Astrological explanations and advice of Egypt sat
alongside prescription of herbal medicines along with advice on proper diet and
rest for the duration of treatment. In China, for such illness and disease, a
combination of drugs known as fang was prescribed to combat disease thought to
be caused by angered spirits and also diet and rest was advised.
The
Greek physicians such as Hippocrates was famous for rejecting the spiritual
explanations of illness, but instead he saw it as a natural imbalance of the
four humours. Yet this was by no means
the only explanation for disease or illness in Greek society. For every elite
healer who offered a natural explanation of disease, one could find that there were
countless diviners and priests who are ever ready to offer a spiritual
explanation, but these explanations were not particularly distinct. Before this explanation, the Indian medicine
introduced a new theory that human body consists of three substances, and that
in order for the body to be healthy, it requires that there remains a balance between
them. They are usually translated as
spirit, phlegm and bile and Greek medicine later advanced a similar theory
which complimented the Indian theory, a theory that is based on four substances
rather than three.
