Is “prevention better than cure?” or “cure better than prevention?” Does it depend? We need a solid understanding of cure, prevention, and the differences between them.
There are two elementary types of cures and three fundamental types of preventatives.
CURE
Every cure is a transformation. There are two basic transformative cures.
Status Transformation Cure
The simplest cure is to transform the illness state. Hippocrates was a brilliant doctor. This quote is one every doctor knows instinctively about illness.
“Diseases which arise from repletion are cured by depletion; and those that arise from depletion are cured by repletion; and in general, diseases are cured by their contraries.”
When we are dehydrated, we need to be hydrated to be cured. When we are malnourished, we need to be nourished, to be cured. Those are simple, obvious examples, but there are thousands more. When we are deficient in Vitamin C, the deficiency is addressed, cured, with Vitamin C. When we are deficient in sleep, the illness is cured with sleep. When we are depressed because we have lost our community spirit, the cure is an increase in community spirit, not a drug. When we have consumed too much food, the cure is less food. The cure transforms the present state of illness.
Sometimes, the curative transformation is more severe. Hippocrates knew this too, although he took the concept a bit too far, reversing the above quote with:
“What cannot be cured by medicaments is cured by the knife, what the knife cannot cure is cured with the searing iron, and whatever this cannot cure must be considered incurable.”
A transformative cure can come from many sources, not just from a surgeon, not just from a doctor. Injuries are cured by healing transformations. Sometimes, medical surgical transformations are needed, but most injuries are cured without any medical action. A grandmother or a brother can remove a sliver. We might remove it ourselves and lick the wound clean. Most cures are trivial. Most injury cures are trivial. However, injuries are not limited to the body. We might also be injured in our mind, our spirits, or our communities, illnesses that can also be cured by transformations.
Process Transformation Cure
The second type of cure is a transformation of process. Each of the above illnesses might have a second layer. When we are malnourished, the illness is cured with food. But if we are suffering from malnourishment of any type because of poverty, the poverty cause must be addressed to cure. A cash injection will not cure poverty. This cure is a process change, not a status change. If malnourishment is caused by an addiction, the addiction process must be addressed to cure. This cure is a process change, not a status change.
Every cure is a transformation, a change. The cure might be a change to a thing, a status, or it might be a change to a life process.
However, don’t be confused by infection. An infection is a thing, not a life process. When the infectious agent is addressed, transformed, killed, the illness is cured. An infection that is caused by a dirty environment, on the other hand, is cured by an ongoing process of cleaning.
Cures that Prevent Disease
Many cures prevent secondary illness and disease. When we cure many types of malnutrition, for example, we prevent disease consequences of malnutrition. When we cure an infection quickly, we prevent the consequences of a more serious infection.
When someone has an illness or disease – a cure is the best preventative.
Cures are Anecdotes: Individual Cases
Every case of a cure, of cured, is an anecdote – a story. We can make statistics about cures and study cures statistically, only after we agree on the definition of a cured state. Cures, by their very nature are anecdotal, not statistical. However, today, cured is simply not defined for most diseases and cures are often constrained by medical chauvinism, thus “there is no cure for the common cold” – even though almost every case of the common cold is cured by healthy actions. The same is true of the FLU.
PREVENTION
From a cure perspective, there are two types of preventatives. Preventatives that cure and preventatives that don’t cure. The third type of preventative is above: a cure.
Preventatives that don’t Cure
Bike helmets, seat belts, drugs that prevent signs and symptoms, and most vaccines. In many cases, these preventatives function by reducing risk, thus reducint our healthiness. We don’t wear helmets when we swim, even in competition, because the risk of bumping our head is low and a helmet significantly impedes performance. We wear helmets while driving a racecar, because the risk is much higher even though they reduce vision and performance.
Preventatives that do not cure are statistical. They have statistical benefits and risks, both of which can vary from person to person, from case to case. When we add statistical preventatives together, analysis becomes more difficult because each preventative action can affect not just the individual, but also the other preventatives.
Preventatives that Cure
Preventatives that cure – like healthy nutrition cured malnutrition, scurvy, beriberi, and Vitamin A poisoning, as well as healthy exercise and rest of body, mind, spirits, and community activities. When we are ill, these preventatives can cure. When we are not ill, they prevent illness.
Cures that Prevent Illness
A cure prevents the next stage of any illness. A cure prevents illnesses caused by illness.
Vitamin C cures the state of scurvy. Vitamin C can also prevent the state of scurvy when no illness is present. Changes to our life processes to regularly consume Vitamin C can cure scorbutic life processes. Changes to our life processes to regularly consume Vitamin C prevents future cases of scurvy and all consequences of Vitamin C deficiency.
Causal Confusion
Much of the confusion between prevention and cure comes from our confusion about causes of illness and disease.
When we define causes statistically, we move towards preventatives, away from cures. When we define causes anecdotally, every case of illness has a unique cause and a single unique cure.
Summary
Cures cure. Preventatives prevent. Sometimes, curative actions prevent future disease. Some preventative actions cure, some do not. Once an illness is present, a preventative that does not cure is useless.
“Prevention is better than cure” is a marketing simplification that fails to study preventatives and cures. The theory of cure is an in depth analysis of these issues across all basic types of illness.
Preventatives generally discourage actions, self sufficiency, and risk, often creating numbness, inability, disability.
Cures encourage actions, explorations, and change, enabling forward movement.
Cures are better than preventatives.
