Health - History and conceptions of the guiding notion of medicine

In the history of medicine the notion of health was conceptualized in many different ways. From the perspective of a history of ideas, however, all approaches appear to be based on a limited number of ten basic conceptions. Health can be seen under the paradigm of harmony, struggle, dialectics, hierarchy, potentiality, transcendence, autonomy, causality, organization, and plurality. Since the paradigm of scientific causality, prevailing in modern medicine, seems not to cover all aspects of patients' live-world health experience, the challenge for doctors remains to also consider other - seemingly outdated - concepts of health, depending on the patient and his or her cultural background.