Viriditas: Hildegard of Bingen's Integral Approach to Medicine and Patient Care
Jacquelyn Choate, Bachelors, Prospective Graduate Student, The University of Texas at Austin
New scientific discoveries have undoubtedly blessed mankind with its advances in modern medicine. However, the prevailing culture of Western medicine has a strong orientation toward a reducto-mechanistic view of the body, according to which the human person is reducible to the sum of its parts. If a part is broken, modern medicine mostly likely has a fix. While this approach certainly has its virtues, this paper addresses the limitations of such a perspective on the human person, especially with regards to medicine and patient care. The Christian tradition and other religions maintain that the human person is a composite of body and soul, with the two influencing one another interchangeably. Therefore, in the practice of care, each dimension of the human person deserves appropriate attention.
A representative of the holistic approach to medicine is the German Benedictine Abbess Hildegard of Bingen. My paper brings attention to this twelfth-century mystic and natural healer who believed that the soul either strengthens or weakens the body through its practice of virtue or vice. In other words, Hildegard viewed spiritual and physical health as intimately connected, with spiritual health as the more potent force in a person’s overall well-being. In my paper, I present her metaphor for the human person which is quite different than the mechanistic picture presented by modern medicine: Hildegard viewed the human person as a garden that must be cultivated, tended, and nourished both spiritually and physically for the fullness of health. In her writing, she prescribed both medicinal and spiritual remedies, practicing a holistic view of healing that incorporated body and soul. Hildegard’s works are a treasury of wisdom for natural and spiritual healers who seek to bring their patients to a place of wholeness. My paper also explains the importance of a close connection to nature in her healing framework—a connection that contributes to a balanced sense of wholeness.
A millennium after her life and works, Hildegard’s practice of care can inform the reductionist tendencies of modern medicine brought about by a reducto-mechanistic view of the body. Scientific discoveries have a necessary and beneficial place in the practice of modern healthcare, yet allowing an reducto-mechanistic approach to dominate the field of medicine will be detrimental to persons’ wholeness and well-being in the end. Certain chronic conditions are exacerbated by a weak and sick spirit; Hildegard’s emphasis on the unity of the body and soul can inform contemporary medicine which often neglects the spiritual dimension to a person’s well-being. Her regimens for strengthening the soul, combined with herbal remedies can do much to heal the body and soul. My paper presents her ultimate concern with the spiritual root of sickness—a concern that is often muffled in modern medicine. While she does not attribute every medical condition to a spiritual weakness, she takes the whole person into account: Western medicine could benefit greatly by revisiting Hildegard’s pre-modern contributions into the body-soul connection.
New scientific discoveries have undoubtedly blessed mankind with its advances in modern medicine. However, the prevailing culture of Western medicine has a strong orientation toward a reducto-mechanistic view of the body, according to which the human person is reducible to the sum of its parts. If a part is broken, modern medicine mostly likely has a fix. While this approach certainly has its virtues, this paper addresses the limitations of such a perspective on the human person, especially with regards to medicine and patient care. The Christian tradition and other religions maintain that the human person is a composite of body and soul, with the two influencing one another interchangeably. Therefore, in the practice of care, each dimension of the human person deserves appropriate attention.
A representative of the holistic approach to medicine is the German Benedictine Abbess Hildegard of Bingen. My paper brings attention to this twelfth-century mystic and natural healer who believed that the soul either strengthens or weakens the body through its practice of virtue or vice. In other words, Hildegard viewed spiritual and physical health as intimately connected, with spiritual health as the more potent force in a person’s overall well-being. In my paper, I present her metaphor for the human person which is quite different than the mechanistic picture presented by modern medicine: Hildegard viewed the human person as a garden that must be cultivated, tended, and nourished both spiritually and physically for the fullness of health. In her writing, she prescribed both medicinal and spiritual remedies, practicing a holistic view of healing that incorporated body and soul. Hildegard’s works are a treasury of wisdom for natural and spiritual healers who seek to bring their patients to a place of wholeness. My paper also explains the importance of a close connection to nature in her healing framework—a connection that contributes to a balanced sense of wholeness.
A millennium after her life and works, Hildegard’s practice of care can inform the reductionist tendencies of modern medicine brought about by a reducto-mechanistic view of the body. Scientific discoveries have a necessary and beneficial place in the practice of modern healthcare, yet allowing an reducto-mechanistic approach to dominate the field of medicine will be detrimental to persons’ wholeness and well-being in the end. Certain chronic conditions are exacerbated by a weak and sick spirit; Hildegard’s emphasis on the unity of the body and soul can inform contemporary medicine which often neglects the spiritual dimension to a person’s well-being. Her regimens for strengthening the soul, combined with herbal remedies can do much to heal the body and soul. My paper presents her ultimate concern with the spiritual root of sickness—a concern that is often muffled in modern medicine. While she does not attribute every medical condition to a spiritual weakness, she takes the whole person into account: Western medicine could benefit greatly by revisiting Hildegard’s pre-modern contributions into the body-soul connection.