Modern medicine comprises a lot of classic thinking in its systems and delivery.
One shining example is something called the Koch Postulate. The Koch Postulate is based on the work of Robert Koch, a German scientist born in 1843, and someone whom most consider the founder of bacteriology. He is also responsible for formulating bacteriological and staining techniques still in use today, and for discovering Mycobacterium and Vibrio cholera.
This brilliant man’s work allowed us to see the relationship between humans and microbes and the fact that this relationship can be symbiotic or pathologic, based on a number of factors. Koch’s influence, however, went far beyond the world of microbiology.
Koch’s Postulate has also been called the “one bug, one disease, one drug” postulate, an unfortunate misnomer in medical thinking that x=y. A number of medical ideas, concepts, disease states, and treatments are based on this simple algorithmic thought process causing an unfortunate amount of unnecessary and, in many cases, risky treatments and interventions.
Of even more concern is the fact that this boxed-in thinking has caused western medicine to miss a whole bunch of opportunities to stop the disease process sooner. For example: the role of food intolerances and sub-clinical chronic infections and their role in autoimmune diseases. It is difficult for professionals to grasp the fact that something you just ate makes your joints hurt really badly a day or two later.
Nothing in life is x=y. Everything has multiple variables that need to be considered, especially when people and their health are involved.
