Organs, organisms and disease

human ontology and medical practice

Mark W. Wartofsky

pp. 67-83

in: Tristram Engelhardt, Stuart Spicker (eds), Evaluation and explanation in the biomedical sciences, Berlin, Springer, 1975

Abstract

The disorders of the body and the mind are to a very large extent the consequences of inadequate responses to the environment. They involve not only a particular organ but the organism as a whole. For this reason, the practice of medicine demands of the physician a holistic attitude that goes beyond that of the experimental scientist.1