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

5.4. A Dynamic Concept of Disease
Modern genetics seeks the causes of disorders at the level of heredity and data
transmission. Disease is preferably described in terms of a lesion, an infection, or a cellular
and/or molecular functional disorder. Study of the causes of disease discloses that it is
exceedingly rare to find diseases that have a monocausal explanation. In the past years, a
multi-causal or multi-factorial explanation model has been developed for many diseases
that appears to be closer to reality.
The insight that the organism has differentiated into mutually dependent and dynamic
processes offers the perspective of a different disease concept. A multi-causal or multifactorial
explanation is comprehensible through the functional-dynamic approach that we
have chosen for this Companion. The multiple causes and symptoms of clinical pictures are
placed in perspective and the mutual relation between ostensibly non-related phenomena
becomes visible. Using the Goethean phenomenological research method sheds light on
context and connection of the various systems and functions in the organism.
With the three disease models that we have presented in this chapter: functional
hypertrophy, functional dislocation, and disturbed time line, we can gain new access
to the dynamic processes in pathology. Not infrequently, disease can be described as a
combination of two or more of these disease models, as we have done for asthma and
pneumonia.
A dynamic concept of disease can be characterized as follows:
Disease occurs when there is a functional hypertrophy and/or functional dislocation and/
or disturbed time line for processes in the organism that are generally considered normal,
natural processes, but that have changed in intensity, spatial localization, and/or time.