ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the culture's understanding of the meaning of health, and the stresses, strains, pulls and pushes on health as a concept itself. During two million years, the population grew from a scattered few people to two or three million, thought to be concentrated entirely in Africa until about 100,000 years ago and growing only very slightly from year to year, century to century. The actual change in the percentage rate of population growth was relatively small, but the rate belies the explosion of absolute numbers crowding into limited space. The three cultures, primitive, modern and postmodern, are not mutually exclusive. They exist simultaneously and affect individuals who experience and are shaped by them in different ways. In primitive cultures, wandering bands lived in close relationship to their environment, and worked together to survive within it. Modern culture began when technologies arose that allowed individuals to function independently of the group or tribe.
