The concept of health as a balance between a person and the environment, the unity of soul and body, and the natural origin of disease, was the backbone of the perception of health in ancient Greek. Similar concepts existed in ancient Indian and Chinese medicine. In the 5th century BC, Pindar defined health as “harmonious functioning of the organs”, emphasizing the physical dimension of health, the physical body and the overall functionality, accompanied by the feeling of comfort and absence of pain. Even today, his definition bears importance as a prerequisite for the overall health and wellness. Plato (429-347 BC) in his “Dialogues” pointed out that a perfect human society could be achieved by harmonizing the interests of the individual and the community, and that the ideal of ancient Greek philosophy “a healthy mind in a healthy body” could be achieved if people established internal harmony and harmony with the physical and the social environment. According to Aristotle’s teaching, man is a social being by his very nature; he tends to live in communities with the duty to respect the moral standards and ethical rules. Aristotle emphasized the necessity for regulating the relations in the society to achieve harmonious functioning and preservation of health of its members. Democritus connected health with behavior, why people prayed to God for health, which was essentially under their own control. Hippocrates explained health in connection with the environmental factors and lifestyle. Hippocrates was the creator of the concept of “positive health”, which depended on the primary human constitution (we consider it today as genetics), diet, and exercise. He thought that proper diet and exercise were essential for health, and that seasons’ changes had a profound effect on the mind and body, resulting in different types of predominant diseases during the winter (respiratory tract diseases) and summer (digestive tract diseases) A lot might be said about the longstanding philosophical discussion about body and soul, and in present society between body and mind, as an active dichotomy (Plato and Hellenism) or as an integrated unity (usually reference to Aristotle), which is important to know about in the current online environment.
The “forgotten” knowledge of antiquity was re-discovered during the Renaissance and re-framed up to the present. During the period of Industrial Revolution, health became an economic category, which was to allow good condition and working ability and reduce lost work days due to illness. Accordingly, the value of health was such as enabling economic profit. The health was intertwined with Darwinian understandings of strength and being the fittest, where life meaning was tied to physical survival. Another health aspect considered the ability of the individual to adapt to the influences from the environment to the extent that the individual could tolerate and resist. When the adjustment is over, the disease occurs as a natural consequence.
The holistic concept of health is contained in the expression of wholeness. Health is a relative state in which one is able to function well physically, mentally, socially, and spiritually to express the full range of one’s unique potentialities within the environment in which one lives. Both health and illness are dynamic processes and each person is located on a graduated scale or continuous spectrum (continuum) ranging from wellness and optimal functioning in every aspect of one’s life, at one end, to illness culminating in death, at the other
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