ABSTRACT
The shaman/medicine man understood the nature of disease, and in particular the patients understanding of his illness, and developed magic interventions codified in rituals of ceremony and the handing out of medicines. In Roman times health care identified the importance of public and social infrastructure and hygiene – public health was born, though forgotten after the demise of the Roman Empire only to be rediscovered in the middle of the 18th century. The disease focus has led to the fragmentation of medical care, resulting in an ability to cure the patients diseases without achieving the original aim of medicine – to restore the person to becoming a functioning member of society. However the science and technology focus has created a layer modifying the interactions between doctor and patient. Modern medicine has lost the understanding of the whole, i.e. the person with the illness, in the fragments of his body, organ and cellular parts.
