Sanogenetic vs Pathogenetic

Battle of the Body: Sanogenetic and Pathogenetic

An excerpt from Dr. Mosaraf Ali's Integrated Health Bible.

Integrated medicine has to make certain concessions to conventional medicine in order that integration can take place.

For example, modern medicine, only 300 years old, can scarcely be expected to accept 2,500-year-old concepts such as the physis. Integrated medicine has therefore put the concept into modern terms. While the agents of disease are called pathogens, integrated medicine now regards the power of health as sanogenetic (sanos - health, genos - growth). So in the body there are two equal and opposite forces interacting, sanogenetic powers (those that are trying to keep the body healthy by rectifying all the imbalances in the body) and pathogenetic powers (the elements that cause disease in the body by unbalancing it, the pathogens). So sanogenetic powers and pathogenetic powers are continuously struggling against each other in the body. In status quo you retain your health. If the sanogenetic powers are successfully working so that the pathogenetic powers are suppressed then the body remains healthy.

Let us examine this philosophy against a real situation. The skin is full of bacteria and yet it does not become infected unless cut or burned, thanks to its own sanogenetic powers. Every cubic millimetre of air is full of bacteria - germs - and even more so when travelling in a tube train or an aircraft. You are breathing in germs by the bucketful. So the pathogenetic powers are surrounding us. The food we eat is full of pathogenetic forces.

If there were no sanogenetic counter-agents you would be ill, you could not survive.

“The body has two equal and opposite forces interacting i.e. sanogenetic powers (keeping the body healthy) and pathogenetic powers causing disease in the body– the pathogens.”

Take a normal meal, which might consist of nibbles such as nuts, a starter of fried food, alcohol, a main course - meat and vegetables - followed by dessert, tea or coffee and a piece of chocolate. You have blended some 15 different substances - chemicals - and dumped them into your stomach. Now you hope the stomach will sort it out. Each substance has different properties and they need different enzymes to digest them. If the sanogenetic powers were not functioning you would be in trouble. That's when disease sets in showing such symptoms as burping, acidity, digestive problems and bloating.

The sanogenetic powers are such that even if you misuse your digestive system, if you treat it like the municipal rubbish dump, you will usually be OK. But we take the sanogenetic forces for granted. We often do not realise what a tremendous load we put on the sanogenetic powers when we do this. After all, our bodies are our responsibility, but we misuse them, do no periodic maintenance, drive them to their limit, then go to the doctor, pass the responsibility over to him and expect him to put it right. You know what happens to your car or house, and your wallet, if you treat them like that. Would any executive or manager survive if that were the philosophy adopted?

Alternatively, we go out burning ourselves in the sun to get a tan, or we may indulge in chemical or drug abuse. The fact is we are continuously exposing ourselves to the pathogenetic powers that surround us, much of the time thoughtlessly and unnecessarily.

Now let us consider where the immune system fits into all this. The immune system is that part of the sanogenetic system that deals with warding off the bugs, the germs, the viruses, the fungi, the bacteria. The immune system involves lymphocytes (T-cells), antibodies (defensive bodies), lymph nodes, spleen, bone marrow etc. So, when external agents come into the body, the sanogenetic powers try to ward them off by sending out specific cells, certain chemicals or protein particles (antibodies) in the blood to destroy them. This represents the immune system in its classical sense.

The sanogenetic powers have many names. The Greek word was physis, which was regarded as the soul. The Indians called it prana. The Arabic word is nafs, which is equivalent to "breath of life'. So physis has some spiritual connotation. The original study of physis was physiology (logos - study), so a physician was one who healed through the physis. Physiology was supposed to study the inner soul, the properties or qualities that God has given us, to keep our body and mind the way it should be.

The advent of science, however, caused medicine to direct study towaras cells, tissues and systems, so that today in physiology there is no study of the mind, far less anything spiritual. It does not study why we do things, how we think, emote, transcend, exercise intuition or telepathic powers. It is like analysing the TV set or computer as a series of parts without considering the information flow through it.

When you say you are at your wits' end or exhausted it means you have come to a borderline state, in which sanogenetic and pathogenetic powers are in close conflict. If the pathogenetic forces are too great, if the stress is too great, perhaps because you have not slept for many nights, there is a breakdown; you get panic attacks, depression, obsessions, persecutions or even hallucinations. But the sanogenetic powers are there, even in the mind, trying to keep a balance.

The stronger the sanogenetic forces the better. You are healthier. Just as with two hand-wrestlers in a test of strength, if the arm of one contestant is tilted back by the opponent, it is then twice as difficult to get it back and go the other way. So if the sanogenetic forces are overcome, it is twice as difficult to get back to health. The forces need a lot of help. If you have given in, it is twice as hard. Similarly, if the sanogenetic forces are strong it is twice as difficult for the pathogenetic powers to force their way in.

This is what healthy people achieve.

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Dr. Mosaraf Ali, MD is a pioneer of integrated medicine, author and founder of The Integrated Medical Centre (London and New Delhi).

Image credits: The Integrated Health Bible.