The notion of the universe as a great and complex machine is compelling: intricate pieces interconnected and interdependent. Solar systems, planets, humans and cells, all machines within machines. It’s not just compelling, but culturally pervasive. Yet, it wasn’t until the 17th century that this mechanistic framework was put into heavy rotation. Today it dominates all sciences, and within it is the reduction of life to its parts and pieces, however minute. The chemicals, tissues, bacteria, viruses, etc., of pathology, therefore, become the cogs and springs of medicine, each to be eliminated, replaced or otherwise addressed to ward off disease— with only ancillary regard for the whole of the being they reside within.

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