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While the contrast in emphasis between the traditional Oriental integrated way-of-life health systems and the narrower, more specific disease treatment orientation of modern Western medicine remains prominent, broad concepts of general health promotion have received increasing international attention in recent decades. The World Health Organization (WHO) signified this broadening shift in perspective in 1946 with its definition: “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” The importance of inner peace and spiritual harmony has been emphasized, as well. In 1978, WHO recommended that traditional health and folk medicine approaches be integrated with modern medical therapies, stressing the necessity of ensuring rapport and collaboration among practitioners of the various systems. This Tulsi book, and the research it documents, represents a significant step in this direction.
The West is clearly in the midst of a major paradigm shift away from its former almost exclusively reactive disease-oriented thera-peutic and preventative system, managed by medical personnel, to a more pro-active, multidisciplinary, public health promotion approach. In addition to a rapidly expanding reliance on “alternative” or “complementary” health care practitioners, a significant “self-care revolution” is clearly underway, in which individuals are increasingly taking charge of their own health. There is growing public and professional awareness that many non-medical aspects of day-to-day life can significantly favor health or be harmful to it. In addition to biological fitness, general quality of life issues, including spiritual, dietary, lifestyle, political/economic and environmental factors, are now recognized as essential components of a positive, healthy society.
This positive evolution in modern health perspectives includes the growing scientific examination and verification of many previously unexplored or prematurely rejected traditional treatments and holistic systems for achieving and maintaining optimal health. The investigation of Tulsi's health promoting properties is one of the rapidly expanding research areas sure to bear rich fruit. Currently little known in the West, Tulsi is certain to emerge in the near future as a major player in the growing field of herbal supplements and medicines, both in daily self-care and in professionally-managed health care systems.
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