“It is more important to know what sort of person has a disease than to know what sort of disease a person has.”

In this quote, Hippocrates reveals his focus on the person before the disease. Unlike purely Western treatment modalities, this philosophy is at the heart of the Eastern Indian system of Ayurveda or, literally, “science of life.”  In this practice, which is more than 50 centuries old, healers learn basic aspects of a patient’s physical and mental constitution before deciding which treatments (and, more often, preventatives…) would be best for general wellness as well as specific conditions.