''Vis medicatrix naturae'' (literally "the healing power of nature", and also known as ''natura medica'') is the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

rendering of the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''Νόσων φύσεις ἰητροί'' ("Nature is the physician(s) of diseases"), a phrase attributed to

Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (; grc-gre, Ἱπποκράτης ὁ Κῷος, Hippokrátēs ho Kôios; ), also known as Hippocrates II, was a Greek physician of the classical period who is considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of ...

. While the phrase is not actually attested in his corpus, it nevertheless sums up one of the guiding principles of Hippocratic medicine, which is that

organism In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and ...

s left alone can often heal themselves (''cf.'' the Hippocratic ''

primum non nocere ' () is a Latin phrase that means "first, do no harm". The phrase is sometimes recorded as '. Non-maleficence, which is derived from the maxim, is one of the principal precepts of bioethics that all students in healthcare are taught in school a ...

'').

Hippocrates

Hippocrates believed that an organism is not passive to

injuries An injury is any physiological damage to living tissue caused by immediate physical stress. An injury can occur intentionally or unintentionally and may be caused by blunt trauma, penetrating trauma, burning, toxic exposure, asphyxiation, or ...

disease A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that a ...

, but rebalances itself to counteract them. The state of

illness A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that ar ...

, therefore, is not a malady but an effort of the body to overcome a disturbed equilibrium. It is this capacity of organisms to correct imbalances that distinguishes them from non-living matter. From this follows the medical approach that “nature is the best physician” or “nature is the healer of disease”. To do this Hippocrates considered a doctor’s chief aim was to help this natural tendency of the body by observing its action, removing obstacles to its action, and thus allow an organism to recover its own health.Neuburger, M. (1944) "An Historical Survey of the Concept of Nature from a Medical Viewpoint" Isis 35 (1): 16–2
JSTOR
/ref> This underlies such Hippocratic practices as

blood letting Bloodletting (or blood-letting) is the withdrawal of blood from a patient to prevent or cure illness and disease. Bloodletting, whether by a physician or by leeches, was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily fl ...

in which a perceived excess of a

humors Humorism, the humoral theory, or humoralism, was a system of medicine detailing a supposed makeup and workings of the human body, adopted by Ancient Greek medicine, Ancient Greek and Medicine in ancient Rome, Roman physicians and Greek philosoph ...

is removed, and thus was taken to help the rebalancing of the body's

humor Humour (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the tendency of experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humorism, humoral medicine of the ancient Gre ...

Renaissance and modern history

After Hippocrates, the idea of ''vis medicatrix naturae'' continued to play a key role in medicine. In the

early Renaissance Renaissance art (1350 – 1620 AD) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occ ...

, the physician and early scientist

Paracelsus Paracelsus (; ; 1493 – 24 September 1541), born Theophrastus von Hohenheim (full name Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim), was a Swiss physician, alchemist, lay theologian, and philosopher of the German Renaissance. He w ...

had the idea of “inherent balsam”.

Thomas Sydenham Thomas Sydenham (10 September 1624 – 29 December 1689) was an English physician. He was the author of ''Observationes Medicae'' which became a standard textbook of medicine for two centuries so that he became known as 'The English Hippocrate ...

, in the 18th century considered fever as a healing force of nature. In the nineteenth-century, ''vis medicatrix naturae'' came to be interpreted as

vitalism Vitalism is a belief that starts from the premise that "living organisms are fundamentally different from non-living entities because they contain some non-physical element or are governed by different principles than are inanimate things." Wher ...

, and in this form it came to underlie the philosophical framework of

homeopathy Homeopathy or homoeopathy is a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine. It was conceived in 1796 by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. Its practitioners, called homeopaths, believe that a substance that causes symptoms of a dis ...

chiropractic Chiropractic is a form of alternative medicine concerned with the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of mechanical disorders of the musculoskeletal system, especially of the spine. It has esoteric origins and is based on several pseudosci ...

hydropathy Hydrotherapy, formerly called hydropathy and also called water cure, is a branch of alternative medicine (particularly naturopathy), occupational therapy, and physiotherapy, that involves the use of water for pain relief and treatment. The term ...

osteopathy Osteopathy () is a type of alternative medicine that emphasizes physical manipulation of the body's muscle tissue and bones. Practitioners of osteopathy are referred to as osteopaths. Osteopathic manipulation is the core set of techniques in ...

and

naturopathy Naturopathy, or naturopathic medicine, is a form of alternative medicine. A wide array of pseudoscientific practices branded as "natural", "non-invasive", or promoting "self-healing" are employed by its practitioners, who are known as naturop ...

Relation to homeostasis

Walter Cannon Walter Bradford Cannon (October 19, 1871 – October 1, 1945) was an American physiologist, professor and chairman of the Department of Physiology at Harvard Medical School. He coined the term "fight or flight response", and developed the theory ...

's notion of

homeostasis In biology, homeostasis (British English, British also homoeostasis) Help:IPA/English, (/hɒmɪə(ʊ)ˈsteɪsɪs/) is the state of steady internal, physics, physical, and chemistry, chemical conditions maintained by organism, living systems. Thi ...

also has its origins in ''vis medicatrix naturae''. "All that I have done thus far in reviewing the various protective and stabilizing devices of the body is to present a modern interpretation of the natural vis medicatrix.".Cross, S. T. Albury, W. R. (1987) "Walter B. Cannon, L. J. Henderson, and the Organic Analogy" Osiris 3:165-192 page 17

/ref> In this, Cannon stands in contrast to

Claude Bernard Claude Bernard (; 12 July 1813 – 10 February 1878) was a French physiologist. Historian I. Bernard Cohen of Harvard University called Bernard "one of the greatest of all men of science". He originated the term ''milieu intérieur'', and the a ...

(the father of modern

physiology Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemical ...

), and his earlier idea of

milieu interieur The internal environment (or ''milieu intérieur'' in French language, French) was a concept developed by Claude Bernard, a French physiologist in the 19th century, to describe the Extracellular fluid#Interstitial fluid, interstitial fluid and it ...

that he proposed to replace vitalistic ideas about the body. However, both the notions of homeostasis and milieu interieur are ones concerned with how the body's physiology regulates itself through multiple

mechanical equilibrium In classical mechanics, a particle is in mechanical equilibrium if the net force on that particle is zero. By extension, a physical system made up of many parts is in mechanical equilibrium if the net force on each of its individual parts is zero ...

adjustment feedbacks rather than nonmechanistic life forces.

Relation to evolutionary medicine

More recently,

evolutionary medicine Evolutionary medicine or Darwinian medicine is the application of modern evolutionary theory to understanding health and disease. Modern biomedical research and practice have focused on the molecular and physiological mechanisms underlying heal ...

has identified many medical symptoms such as

fever Fever, also referred to as pyrexia, is defined as having a body temperature, temperature above the human body temperature, normal range due to an increase in the body's temperature Human body temperature#Fever, set point. There is not a single ...

inflammation Inflammation (from la, wikt:en:inflammatio#Latin, inflammatio) is part of the complex biological response of body tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or Irritation, irritants, and is a protective response involving im ...

sickness behavior 350px, Ancher, Michael, "The Sick Girl", 1882, Statens Museum for Kunst Sickness behavior is a coordinated set of adaptive behavioral changes that develop in ill individuals during the course of an infection. They usually, but not always, accom ...

, and

morning sickness Morning sickness, also called nausea and vomiting of pregnancy (NVP), is a symptom of pregnancy that involves nausea or vomiting. Despite the name, nausea or vomiting can occur at any time during the day. Typically the symptoms occur between th ...

as evolved adaptations that function as ''darwinian medicatrix naturae'' due to their selection as means to protect, heal, or restore the injured, infected or physiologically disrupted body.Nesse, R. M. Williams, G. C. (1994) 'Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine' Vintage Books New York

References

{{reflist, 2 Latin medical words and phrases Ancient Greek medicine Natural philosophy Biology theories ja:自然治癒力

Hippocrates

Renaissance and modern history

Relation to homeostasis

Relation to evolutionary medicine

See also

References