The philosopher Aristotle never thought in threes. From his law of contradiction, also labelled as the law of the excluded middle, to the binary logic of our modern computer programmes, our mindset focuses its compass and radar on pros and cons and vice versa.
The medieval philosopher René Descartes, however, offered a small space for a third, right in the middle of the brain, the pineal gland, the source of melatonin — the hormone that regulates our bio-clock, or circadian rhythms (sleep-wake cycle). Descartes attested to the gland’s tiny, yet enormous value in opposition to the two major contenders in his system of thought — the thinking mind of the individual from within and the extended space outside.
The history of individualised diagnosis and treatment, as well as different concepts of the individual and their impact on medical practice and healthcare, likewise, emanates from the ancient Greeks to the present day. The concept of individuality spans the entire Western medical tradition, including complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). While some aspects of it have remained extraordinarily stable, others have evolved taking on new meanings in different social, intellectual and technological contexts.
As biochemist Roger John Williams, who ‘baptised’ folic acid (vitamin B9) and discovered pantothenic acid (vitamin B5), suggested, “The existence in every human being of a vast array of attributes which are potentially measurable (whether by present methods or not), and often uncorrelated mathematically, makes quite tenable the hypothesis that practically every human being is a deviate in some respects.”
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