Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Picture Health

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Handbook of Systems and Complexity in Health

Abstract

What is health? How do we understand it? Where does it come from? Why does it go away? Health is not like sunlight, for instance, which we can see, nor is health like the sun’s warmth which we can touch. While philosophical dualism such as Descartes’ can put doubt to our senses’ feelings of hot and cold, of light and dark, health itself remains inscrutable. We cannot put our finger on it, touch it, point towards it nor measure it directly. Discussing subjective sensations of health reminds us of other human experiences of happiness and pain, sensations which we have built scales to measure while there always remains some ambiguity and doubt.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Also known as “loss of functional reserve.”

  2. 2.

    For example, a healthy person’s lung consolidation with pneumonia will appear within days, clear within a week of treatment, yet his energy levels and functional abilities often take another month to recover.

References

  1. Baker GP, Morris KJ. Descartes’ dualism. New York, NY: Psychology Press; 1996.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Preamble to the Constitution of the World Health Organization as adopted by the International Health Conference, New York, 19-22 June, 1946; signed on 22 July 1946 by the representatives of 61 States (Official Records of the World Health Organization, no. 2, p. 100) and entered into force on 7 April 1948.

    Google Scholar 

  3. Willius F. A history of the heart and the circulation. Philadelphia, PA: Saunders; 1948.

    Google Scholar 

  4. Ottensen J. Mathematical modelling in medicine. Philadelphia, PA: IOS Press; 2000. p. 244.

    Google Scholar 

  5. Bar-yam Y. Dynamics of complex systems. Boulder, CO: Westview Press; 2003. p. 864.

    Google Scholar 

  6. Topolski S. Clinical application of chaos and complexity theory in family medicine. Eighth International Conference on Complex Systems, Quincy, MA: NECSI; 2010.

    Google Scholar 

  7. Walleczek J. Self-organized biological dynamics and nonlinear control: toward understanding complexity, chaos and emergent function in living systems. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2000. p. 442.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  8. Redies C. A universal model of esthetic perception based on the sensory coding of natural stimuli. Spat Vis. 2007; 21(1–2):97–117. doi:10.1163/156856807782753886.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Illich I. Medical nemesis. New York, NY: Pantheon; 1982.

    Google Scholar 

  10. Pellegrino E, Thomasma D. A philosophical basis of medical practice. New York, NY: Oxford University Press; 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  11. Fine M, Peters JW, Lawrence RS. (2007). The nature of health: how america lost, and can regain, a basic human value. Radcliffe Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  12. Bar-Yam Y. Making things work: solving complex problems in a complex world. 1st ed. Cambridge, MA: Knowledge Press; 2005.

    Google Scholar 

  13. Williams JM, Landers DM, Boutcher SH. Arousal-performance relationships. In: Williams JM, editor. Applied sport psychology: personal growth to peak performance. Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield Publishing; 1993. p. 170–84.

    Google Scholar 

  14. Zurek WH. Complexity, entropy, and the physics of information. Boulder, CO: Westview Press; 1990. p. 227.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Potterat JJ, Rothenberg RB, Muth SQ. Network structural dynamics and infectious disease propagation. Int J STD AIDS. 1999; 10(3):182–5. doi:10.1258/0956462991913853.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Costa M, Goldberger AL, Peng C-K. Multiscale entropy analysis of complex physiologic time series. Phys Rev Lett. 2002;89(6):068102.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Tuzcu V, Nas S, Ulusar U, Ugur A, Kaiser JR. Altered heart rhythm dynamics in very low birth weight infants with impending intraventricular hemorrhage. Pediatrics. 2009;123(3):810–5. doi:10.1542/peds.2008-0253.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Ansakorpi H, Korpelainen JT, Huikuri HV, Tolonen U, Myllylä VV, Isojärvi JIT. Heart rate dynamics in refractory and well controlled temporal lobe epilepsy. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2002;72(1):26–30. doi:10.1136/jnnp. 72.1.26.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. Kanters JK, Højgaard MV, Agner E, Holstein-Rathlou NH. Short- and long-term variations in non-linear dynamics of heart rate variability. Cardiovasc Res. 1996;31(3):400–9.

    PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  20. Aslanidi OV, Mornev OA, Skyggebjerg O, Arkhammar P, Thastrup O, Sørensen MP, Christiansen PL, et al. Excitation wave propagation as a possible mechanism for signal transmission in pancreatic islets of Langerhans. Biophys J. 2001;80(3):1195.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  21. Guyton AC, Hall JE. Textbook of medical physiology. 10th ed. Philadelphia, PA: W.B. Saunders Company; 2000. p. 1064.

    Google Scholar 

  22. Engel GL. The need for a new medical model: a challenge for biomedicine. Science. 1977;196:129–36.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  23. Topolski S. Understanding health from a complex systems perspective. J Eval Clin Pract. 2009;15(4):749–54.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Rees DA. Bipartition of the soul in the early academy. J Hell Stud. 1957;77:112–8. doi:10.2307/628642.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Idler EL, Benyamini Y. Self-rated health and mortality: a review of twenty-seven community studies. J Health Soc Behav. 1997;38(1):21–37.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  26. Jylhä M. What is self-rated health and why does it predict mortality? Towards a unified conceptual model. Soc Sci Med. 2009;69(3):307–16.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Topolski S, Sturmberg J. Validation of a complex systems model of health. 8th International Conference on Complex Systems. Quincy, MA: NECSI; 2011.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Joachim Sturmberg and Kathleen Burgess provided valuable advice, support, and encouragement in the completion of this manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Massachusetts Medical School, 1105 Mohawk Trail, Shelburne Falls, MA, USA

    Stefan Topolski

Authors
  1. Stefan Topolski
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefan Topolski .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Department of General Practice, Monash University, PO Box 3010, Wamberal, 2260, New South Wales, Australia

    Joachim P. Sturmberg

  2. Northern Ontario School of Medicine, Merchandise Mart Plaza, Suite 1212 222, Chicago, 60654, Illinois, USA

    Carmel M. Martin

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Topolski, S. (2013). Picture Health. In: Sturmberg, J., Martin, C. (eds) Handbook of Systems and Complexity in Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4998-0_14

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-4998-0_14

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-4997-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-4998-0

  • eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation