Natural
by
Natural is a term so protean, its field of meanings so large, that it almost defies disciplining as a keyword. In the original Keywords, Raymond Williams makes much the same point about nature, calling it “perhaps the most complex word in the language.” Williams identifies three areas of meaning: an essential quality of something; a force that inheres and directs people and/or the world; and the material world, including the people within it. Natural has a similarly broad range of meanings, and as with nature, many of these meanings still resonate today. Within the health humanities, at least four senses are discernible: natural as signifying an essential quality, relating to the material world, identifiable with human reason, and unsullied by human intervention. Natural has, in the first place, been a key term in Western approaches to health, illness, and the body from Greek antiquity onward. According to the Hippocratic tradition, health is a state of dynamic equilibrium in the body, while disease is a general state of imbalance. Since disease is nature’s way of trying to restore equilibrium, healers should seek to imitate this “natural medicinal action” (vis medicatrix naturae) to restore health. In this task, healers have recourse to...
This essay may be found on page 141 of the printed volume.