Health care-based voter registration: a new kind of healing

Excerpt

Since the third century AD, physician Yi He has been considered a founder of traditional Chinese medicine. In one of the most famous passages regarding Yi He, the third century BC Discourses of the States, he was asked a question that physicians still grapple with over 2000 years later: do healers have a role to play in state affairs? He responded, “The superior physician rescues the state, whereas the inferior one merely attends to the sick.” [1]. His response underscored the ancient Chinese belief that physicians and public servants shared the same purpose. In fact, the terms “physician” and “state minister” were essentially interchangeable in ancient Chinese society. Both terms described healers. Just as physicians were healers of the human body, they were also seen as healers of the body politic. …