Man itself is the agent of most human diseases...

Dinushi DILANKA DIKOWITA - Faculty of Medicine Peradeniya

`Nothing on earth is more international than disease’ by Paul Russel. Though the origin of this statement go two/three decades back to history of medicine, anyone who is attached to the healthcare system in anyway will not hesitate to appreciate its truthfulness to the current context. There’s no doubt that advancement of clinical medicine that we entertain today and effective methods that are practised to control and prevent certain diseases has evolved from careful analysis of disease and its causation that have carried out in the past. Koch’s postulates which were forecasted in 1890 by Robert Koch marks an important milestone in the study of disease causation. Koch described establishment of a disease in a person based on the idea that it’s caused by a single agent (microorganism) and was supported by its ability to cause disease in another healthy person when inoculated. But today in an epidemiological point of view, disease is described in terms of an interaction between three entities; agent, susceptible host and susceptible environment. It further interprets disease as an interruption of equilibrium between host, agent and environment which is technically known as epidemiological triangle.

Human disease can result from biological agent like bacteria, virus, protozoa and arthropods, endogenous chemicals like glucose, urea and electrolytes. Exogenous chemicals like acids, alkali, drugs; physical agents like heat, cold; psychological agents like stress; social agents like lifestyle etc. Further age, sex, genetic makeup of a person also makes certain people vulnerable to certain diseases. Furthermore the surrounding environment both physical and psychosocial also contributes a lot for the health of a person. Physically polluted environment will inevitably predispose a person to acquire certain diseases. For example, breathing polluted air will increase the risk of acquiring certain respiratory diseases.

In current context the psychosocial environment of a person has been identified as an important determinant of health and wellbeing. Happy and joyful environment in a family will in turn act as an invisible and most cost effective vaccination against most of the non-communicable diseases like hypertension, diabetes, gastritis etc. Frustrations, isolation, deprivation, stress and other various unhealthy social elements are apparently linked with psychiatric ailments like depression, mania etc and also these conditions make people vulnerable to somatic diseases like cancer by depressing the immune system, which acts as the endogenous defence mechanism against the cancer cells.

The multifactorial causation of diseases is an established fact in modern medicine. The epidemiological studies carried out in relation to lung cancer and cigarette smoking has identified significant association between above two. But based on above material one can easily analyze that lung cancer has resulted due to maladjustment of man to a stressful condition which has led him to smoke cigarette.

So in this scenario man itself is responsible for causing lung cancer! Similarly diabetes will result when somebody is constantly feeling angry, anxious and tensed which causes continuous hormonal activity resulting high blood glucose level. However an endocrinologist will explain the same disease as deficiency of insulin or its action, which is the hormone responsible of manipulating blood glucose level in the body!

Today most of the human diseases including above two examples, man itself is identified as the agent of causing disease. In this context we face real dilemma whether how effective the currently practised treatment modalities and preventive measures, in controlling the diseases. However spiritual medicine is an emerging mode of treatment in modern medicine, which addresses the spirituality of each individual in treating the disease...