Resumo

VERGARA QUINTERO, María del Carmen. THREE HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE HEALTH-DISEASE PROCESS. Hacia promoc. Salud [online]. 2007, vol.12, n.1, pp.41-50. ISSN 0121-7577.

The power to act on life and death has been assigned to gods, because they are external entities to the material world that can act upon the beings of said world. But human beings have counted on their influencing ambassadors to the gods or, as Prometheus said, they have been able to steal their powers. Mediums or medicums, these priests to the body, are endowed with the gods’ secrets and, due to this power, they have an unlimited access to our body: they undress us, touch us, open our entrails, provide us with mysterious concoctions and, after we have lost these 21 grams that keep us alive, they officially declare that we are dead. And it is in the course of this passage from birth to the last sigh that disease constitutes a premonition of the end and health places us near eternity. As a result, health is the great pursuit of humankind, as it avoids or delays the fatality of death. And as an extension or metaphor, health moves from the individual to the social and cosmic dimensions (1). Health, as a vital process to mankind, has not been excluded from the epistemological changes that science has undergone. Accordingly, the concept has egressed or regressed depending on the paradigms we sometimes defend.

Palavras-chave : Health; disease.

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