What Is Holism?
I saw eternity the other night Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm as it was bright. (Henry Vaughan)
Let us start by considering the origin of the word holism. When you consult the Oxford English Dictionary you make a surprising discovery. Holism is a very new word. It has only been in recorded existence since 1926, being coined by a remarkable man, Jan Christian Smuts. Smuts knew his etymology and, in fact checked out the correctness of the word with the great Greek scholar, Gilbert Murray. Here is the Oxford English Dictionary definition of holism:
“A term coined by Gen. J.C. Smuts (1870–1950) to designate the tendency in nature to produce wholes (i.e. bodies or organisms) from the ordered grouping of unit structures. . . . The whole-making holistic tendency, or Holism, operating in and through particular wholes, is seen at all stages of existence.”
The first recorded usage in medicine is not until 1960 — by F. H. Hoffman in Psychosomatics:
“Throughout the United States, concern with teaching about the whole man — ‘holistic’ or comprehensive medicine — is a growing phenomenon in the medical school curriculum.” [If only that were true!]
Smuts wrote it without the w — holistic. Some quibble with this, relating it of…
