Since the time of Descartes science has been influenced by the demand for precision and accuracy in research. In the 20th century also humanities began to submit to this demand. The term precision itself has a far-reaching and historically grown semantics. As a consequence of the attempt to answer precisely and irrefutably to scientific questions, achieved knowledge today is only valid for an increasingly narrow range.

The phenomenon of self-healing forces has again and again challenged doctors in the different historical periods of medical science. They relied on effects of self-healing forces in diagnosis and therapy. They also tried to explain these effects based on the current model of organism. The understanding of this phenomenon has always influenced the understanding of therapy and played a role in defining the concept of health and disease. In the 17th and 18th century the idea of self-healing force was interpreted (...) as a phenomenon related to the organic forces, whereas in the 19th century the explanation was reduced to a materialistic mechanism. Nowadays the knowledge of heath-shock-proteins open the way of a new understanding of the organic defense mechanisms. (shrink)