Respiratory System Disorders and Therapy From a New - Louis Bolk ...

When we make up the balance of common diseases of the airways, it is clear that
disturbances in the healing process lie predominantly in the inflammatory phase. In this
phase, interactive processes of the injured area with the surroundings are restored (Bie et
al 2008. Ch. 3). The respiratory tract is the organ that harbors the continuous interaction
with the outside world through the exchange of air. When this interaction becomes
disturbed through injury, inflammatory processes are pre-eminently suited to attempt to
restore the balance of interactive functions. This attempt is not always successful and may
end up in a chronic inflammatory process or an infection such as we have seen in asthma
and pneumonia. Then, therapeutic interventions are needed to reinstate the natural
rhythmic function of the airways. In all therapy of the respiratory tract, rhythms are of
eminent importance. We will elaborate on rhythms in nature and the human organism so
that the function of rhythm in therapy can be clarified.
7.2. Rhythms in Nature
Rhythmic processes originate in nature in those places where a meeting place develops
between various substances or aggregate states. For example, rhythmic figures develop
where water and wind meet in the form of waves and where water and beach meet in the
form of rhythmic sand ridges (fig. 7.2.).
One of the well-known larger rhythms in nature is the annual course of time. As one
great inhalation and expiration, nature moves through the four seasons and, for organic
substances, there is the progression of growth and development in the spring and of
decomposition and death in the fall. The reproductive life of nearly all animals in the
moderate climate zone is dictated by the course of the seasons. Famous examples include
certain species of sea turtle that, on a specific, astronomically determined day in the
course of the year, crawl onto the beach, lay and bury their eggs, then return to sea.
This cycle is determined by the position of the earth with respect to the sun, which, in
chronobiology, has been given the meaningful name: “Zeitgeber”.
Bolk’s Companions RespiRatoRy system DisoRDeRs anD theRapy - 101