The meanings of health and illness: Medicine, religion and the body (original) (raw)

The object of scientific study of medicine is the physical body. As Ivan Varga points out, modernity has meant 'materialising' as well as 'scientificising' the body, which is studied as subject to the laws of nature: 'advances in biochemistry, genetics…dietetics, etc., together with their often watered down popularisation, spread the image of the scientifically determinable natural body. The healthy bodyin itself not a bad thing-is more and more associated with scientific advances'. 1 Varga underestimates the 'good' of a healthy body here, yet in medicine, such treatment of the body may limit our perspective and communication about who or what is being treated. We need to ask ourselves whether this treatment concerns only the disease, or the human being. To treat the human being is to recognise they way in which they make meaning of the illness, their values, and their world view. Often, however, a religious position is seen as contrary to 'obvious' scientific truth about health and well being.