“Be sure at this time not to attend in your
kindness to anything other than what
is most appropriate to
regain your health.”
- Marcus Cicero
That Claude, what a guy!
You remember him, right? The healthcare man! The fellow who provided you with the
motivation to get up this morning and go for that morning walk, eat that
healthy breakfast, enjoy that breath of fresh air…you know Claude Galen!
Wait.
You don’t know Claude Galen?
Never heard of him, you say?
What
we don’t know…
Claude was on a mission most of his
life. He knew early on what his calling
would be. He was one of those people who
had a life-changing event…a road to Damascus experience…a series of life altering
observations that changed everything about the way he lived!
He was a sickly youngster and not
particularly healthy into his 28th year. It was at this time he discovered…let me see
how best to put this. He discovered the
secret to good health…a secret he would write about and a secret that would
affect generation after generation of people.
His observations have effected your life and mine, but like a lot of
innovators – those prophets that see where others do not – he has, but for a
few, been generally forgotten by the passing of time.
To say he found a secret would not be
precise. Rather he observed and reported
dramatic changes that could occur in people’s lives if they improved the way they lived their lives. It has been a long held belief by
philosophers and religious writers that nature is a great teacher – the natural
law – the laws of nature. It has irrevocable effects on us. Kind of like gravity – the natural law,
simply ‘is.’ Claude was a great observer
of the natural law.
As Claude grew and paid careful attention
to the way the natural law seemed to work, he developed ideas based on those
observations. A series of ideas had to
do with how a person could have a healthy life.
In some ways, like the stoic philosophers,
he understood one could really only control the words that they put in their
minds and the opinions formed from those words.
The extension that he also understood, however, was nothing happens
without action. Thought was not
enough…action was necessary! His actions
became game changers for him, and by extension…many others.
He believed, and taught, that there were
some things needed for a person to have a healthy life. They were:
1.
Good air to breathe,
2.
Healthy food and drink to
consume,
3.
Appropriate and restful sleep,
4.
Moderate to vigorous daily exercise,
5.
Good working bowels for proper
retention and excretion, and
6.
Thoughtful management of mental
passions
You might say Claude was an early adopter.
Let’s
take a look…
Clean
air: He taught that clean air to breathe was
essential in order for the body to be in balance.
Food
and Drink: The
kind and amount of food were important – fresh and less rich were the
best. Balancing the enemies of nourishment
put into the fire of metabolism. Digestion destroys the food, taking every bit of nutrition out. If either side overwhelmed the other, a
person would become either overweight or wither away from starvation. Balance – the key!
Sleep: Who does not appreciate a good night’s sleep? Claude observed too much or not enough sleep
led to poor health. As with food and
drink, these two opposites – sleep and wakefulness – needed balance in order to
keep one’s optimal health.
Exercise: There is little better for overall health than exercise. This was one of the most important aspects of
Claude’s observations. Exercise had led
him out of his poor health and carried him to a long and vigorous life. It should be done daily, and by definition to
qualify as meaningful exercise; it must increase respiration above rest and
warm the body. He did not believe in
athletic competition, because he felt it favored the talented few, that the body
would be used up in youth and suffer in old age.
Retention
and excretion: Okay, I’ll say it. There is little more gratifying than having
good operating bowels, and little more problematic than when they are not working
as they should! Like the teaching many
of us had as children, “…an apple a day keeps the doctor away…” – meaning the
fiber in the apple would keep our bowels moving. Claude believed it was important to have a
bowel movement every day.
Management
of the passions: Stress management is a really
important skill set in our fast paced society.
It was clear to Claude that when a person was emotionally out of
balance, it affected everything about their health. While passion for life is important…he
believed learning to control one’s passions and not being overcome by them,
reduced life’s friction dramatically.
The
irony…
Claude noted these things long before the
science was there to show that his observations were key to the management and
prevention of a lot of chronic diseases we find ourselves overwhelmed by
today. There is little doubt chronic
disease is a problem for the person with it, but also a crippling economic burden on
society in general. In the United States
alone healthcare costs, many of which could be avoided by following Claude’s ideas,
sit at nearly 18% of our Gross Domestic Product. That means nearly 18 cents of every dollar in
your pocket goes to healthcare.
You’re
killing me…
Near the end of the 19th
century, germs were discovered and rather than focusing on health, Western
medicine began to focus on the treatment of disease. This would not have been a problem, had there
been continued interest in keeping people well, the role of medicine for a very
long time.
Prior to the 20th Century, most
people died from acute infections. This
meant the sick seldom lived long enough to develop chronic diseases. By the end of the 20th Century
deaths from acute disease was practically zero – a great success for the
scientific medical community.
Unfortunately, little to no emphasis was placed on the management of
chronic disease, so that by the end of the 20th Century, the vast
majority of deaths occurred from chronic causes.
Everybody
took credit but Claude…
In the 1960s, observant people began to
say, “Hey, wait a minute! Isn’t there
something we can do to reduce the risk of dying from these chronic diseases?” Heart attacks got the most attention,
because…well, you know…they were lethal!
From these roots, wellness hit its stride, and by now, the
health/fitness industries provide services for people who either want to get
healthier, or need help managing a persistent health problem.
While Claude did not get the credit he
deserved, there seemed to be an awakening to the ideas that the air we
breathe…the food we eat…the sleep we get…the exercise we take…the effective and
regular working of our digestive tract, and the management of stress have
dramatic positive effects on our health.
Who
was this man?
By the way, Claude Galen was ‘Claudius
Galenus’ a physician who was born in 129AD and lived into his seventies. His broad interests included: the nervous
system, anatomy, disease (pathology), physiology, the effects of medicines, and
philosophy. He wrote and published lots of
papers on these topics, many of which were part of medical thinking for more
than 1,300 years. Some of his ideas and
writings were later discarded as science began to emerge in the fields he
studied, however, his teaching on health lifestyle can be found in practically every university curriculum and wellness
program world-wide to this very day.
I guess I just wanted to give a little
credit to the man, who from simple observation, created a recipe for good
health, and barring an unforeseen catastrophic event, a long life. It is as meaningful now as it was then. Yep, the natural law…gotta love it.
Yes indeed...“That Claude, what a guy!”
- ted
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