Article January 1, 2001 Issue

Natural and good medicine

Getting to the root of health

By Nathan A. Talbot

Some revolutions are so shattering, the entire world holds its breath while watching. Others just happen while people take little notice.

One day soon we may wake up and realize that our world of medicine would hardly be recognizable to people of a few decades earlier. On the surface, it appears that Western medicine is still largely an industry of drugs and surgery. Yet below the surface (and not too deep), a giant reordering is going on. Some people may think this is related to economic factors. But it's far more. The very meaning of medicine may change.

Many trends give us clues about this transition. One of them is the growing interest in what has been dubbed the mind/body connection. The shift to a realization that the human mind is far more "connected" to the body than was previously believed, could lead to a huge transformation in the way we care for our health. Society may be marching toward the treatment of quite a different "patient"—that is, the treating of thought as the most effective way of healing the body.

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