I readily admit I have no official training at all in anything related to medicine. I admit I had to look up "portal vein" and opted to watch a YouTube video about the hypothalamus to better understand why it is such a big deal. I appreciated Matt's concise and easy-to-follow overview of our body organs and systems and continue to be amazed at just how amazing our bodies are! Be sure to read all the way to the end of the chapter as Matt pulls it together and also presents his rational for small, material doses, also referred to as "Wood Doses", thanks to Matt's last name. (It's a good thing he has such a nice last name. "Raadt doses" just wouldn't have such a nice ring).
Organs and Systems: Primary Structures of the Body
- Primary Organizational Levels of the Body
o Disease tends to derange the Basic functions and structures of the body long before it comes to the surface in a local lesion.
o It is upon these general functions and organs that herbs tend to expend their healing power; the majority do not have affinities to specific lesions and tissue changes but to functional spheres
o Modern biomedicine left behind the idea of general patterns of disease located in the general functions, organs, or systems of the body. That was the break that alienate biomedicine from all systems of natural therapy.
o Four levels of organization in the living body: cell, tissue, organ and system
§ Cell: basic unit of life. Nutrition, metabolism and elimination are the basic functions
§ Tissue: cells form into tissues – muscular, nervous, epithelial and connective
· Epithelium lines body, skin, mucosa
§ Organ: Epithelium plus other tissues form the visceral organs, surrounded by muscular tissues, all held together by connective tissue and innervated by nervous tissue
§ System: a group of organs together that perform an important function, i.e. digestion or elimination
§ Fibers: the smallest unit of living tissue
- Primary Organ Systems
o Biomedicine recognizes 11 basic systems: circulatory, digestive, respiratory, urinary, immune, nervous, endocrine, reproductive, skeletal, muscular and integumentary (skin, hair, nails)
o Regulatory or “guidance systems”: nervous, endocrine, hypothalamus
o Functional organ systems (GI, cardiovascular, liver, etc.)
o The body always seeks to move disease from the vial, regulatory level to the peripheral or defensive level
- Guidance systems
o Function separately but integrated and overlapping directed in some measure by the hypothalamus
o Hormones secreted by glands in the endocrine system
o Electrical signals/exchange from the nervous system
§ Voluntary (conscious control):
· Central nervous system (CNS); consciousness and decision making
· Peripheral nervous system (PNS): sensation and movement
§ Involuntary
· Autonomic nervous system: sympathetic (awake/alert); ‘fight or flight when in danger
· Parasympathetic (rest, digest)
o Endocrine Core: pituitary, thyroid, and adrenal glands
§ Regulates temperature, water levels, cellular and body growth, maturation and reproduction
o Hypothalamus: Master Gland that must be considered for comprehensive care of organism
§ Influences/controls the pituitary;
§ Screens blood for indicators from endocrine system (hormone levels)
§ Receives signals from nervous system
§ Signals the appropriate neural and endocrine centers to maintain balance
§ Signals sweat pores, sebaceous glands, capillaries, goose bumps, shivering to maintain thermic equilibrium
§ Part of limbic centers regulating emotional and subjective reactions
- Blood, the Universal Medium: universal medium carrying food and water to all parts of the body, while carrying waste products away
o Blood is the seat of disease (anemia, coagulation, putrefaction) or it can pick up diseases and spread them throughout the body
- Functional organ Systems
o Lungs/Respiration: inhalation brings oxygen for RBCs which unload carbon dioxide that is exhaled; also pumps the fluids of the body
o Heart/Circulation: pumps blood to distribute oxygen and foodstuffs while removing waste products; maintains even temperature of the body
o Stomach/Digestion: upper GI tract (lips, mouth, tongue, pharynx, esophagus, stomach, duodenum) break down food for assimilation
§ Problems usually due to neuromuscular weakness, wrongs of secretion or improper diet
o Small Intestine/Assimilation: receives food from stomach; 12-20 feet of gut for complete digestion
§ Gut Associated Lymphoid Tissue (GALT) immune tissue
§ Problems with assimilation due to inflammation , depression , or malnourishment in cells lining the small intestine, or stagnation in the portal vein and lymphatics
o Large Intestine/Elimination: concentrates the unusable part of the digestate into a suitable solid mass for elimination
o Lymph/Immune: Provides nutriment to the interstitial cells surrounding the cells and takes away waste products; the vehicle through which the immune system acts
§ Lymph and interstitial fluids do not have their own “pump” but rely on movements of the diaphragm and general “hum” of bodily movement
§ Problems usually due to immune over sensitivity or depression, and lymphatic stagnation or weakness; often associated with the spleen, the largest structure in the system
o Liver/Preparatory Metabolism:
§ The portal vein drains all the digestive viscera, catches waste materials and gathers food/toxins from small intestine for delivery to the liver for detoxification (catabolism) and rebuilding (anabolism)
§ Foodstuffs prepared by the liver collected into veins draining the liver and sent to the heart, to arteries, to capillaries, cross the barrier and enter the interstitial fluids to be picked up by the cells of the body; hence, the liver is in charge of preparatory metabolism
o Gall Bladder/Bile Regulation: liver makes bile as a byproduct; gall ducts receive bile and secretes into common bile duct and small intestine; emulsifies fats and oils in the gut
o Pancreas/Digestive and Metabolic assistant:
§ Stomach signals pancreas to dump digestive enzymes into bile duct to act on the digestate; carbs broken down into glucose, proteins into amino acids, lipids into short fatty acid chains, minerals freed for absorption
§ Secretes insulin to help cells pick up glucose and proteins; keeps up a continuous level of blood sugar for the tissues
o Kidneys/Water and Solid Regulation:
§ Remove waste products from the interior of the body
§ Kidneys are filters that measure and balance the internal fluids/solids of the body
§ Arteries feed blood into kidneys where there is continuous exchange until waste products and water are left in tubules, while minerals and nutrients are retained in the blood
§ Regulated by aldosterone from adrenal cortex (excrete more) and vasopressin (antidiuretic hormone) from posterior pituitary (retain more)
§ Waste material and water expelled into bladder
§ Kidneys screen oxygen content of blood; if not, they signal stem cells in the bone marrow to produce more RBCs
§ Also maintain blood pressure
o Bladder/Water and Solid Elimination: ureters bring urine from kidneys to bladder
- Special Systems: complex; composed of many different tissues and organs or other major organ systems manifest through them
o Reproductive System
§ Female system open to external world, childbearing, lactation: more easily disordered
§ Male system less often disordered; impotence, prostate enlargement common
o Muscular and Skeletal System: includes muscles, nerves, cartilage, bones, tendons, complex joints, cerebrospinal fluid, circulatory vessels, and epithelial linings (bursa)
§ To treat effectively, attend to each component individually, as well as the whole
o Skin, hair, nails: usually, if one structure is weak, so are the others
§ Skin is an eliminative channel; if pores clogged, burden is thrown on the other channels of elimination, particularly the kidneys, colon, and lungs. The reverse is also true
- Interactions between Organ Systems:
o Usually, an imbalance will spread from one functional unit into others as healthy functional units try to compensate for weaknesses; overtaxed organs and systems can no longer compensate, and disturbance will move from a functional level to a condition of tissue breakdown; material lesion may appear
o Biomedical approach tries to compensate with a drug to make the body do what it is supposed to do until it reaches a level where drugs or surgery are necessary
o Holistic approach is to try to return it to a state of health where it can take care of itself; stimulate/sedate, feed/cleanse, allow organs and systems to return to healthy operation
o Modern fad tries to use herbs like drugs to suppress imbalance; this is not curative, it is more suppression and management
o Medicinal plants are powers or forces which act on the body in a milder fashion than drugs, but stronger than food; they do not force, but exercise functions in the body by increasing or decreasing the level of activity, tension and hydration
- Medicinal Organ Affinities: herbs often classified according to their affinity to act on a certain organ
o Principles governing the selection of organ specific medicines
§ Kind of action: the remedy has a specific kind of action on that tissue
§ Seat of action: the remedy has a specific affinity to a particular tissue, organ, or function
§ Range of action: the remedy may be curative to the seat and the kind of action or the disease, but is range of action may be limited
o Organ affinities are the product of experience
§ Organ testing: give a series of medicines until the right one is found; Matthew puts a drop on the wrist until he feels the pulse change
§ Works best in small doses