Long covid-19 sufferers were given a new name for the condition. Why it matters
Naming diseases had always been, for better and for worse, a power move. In the late 19th century, various models of care, known as medical sects, shared a crowded marketplace, and the allopathic medicine that is our orthodoxy today was little more than one variant competing for patients. Most sects, such as the naturopaths, homeopaths, osteopaths and eclectics, focused less on naming disease, and instead promoted therapies that foregrounded the always-unique interaction of pathogen and an individual body. Allopathic practitioners, on the other hand, believed that the solution to disease was to be found in unlocking the mysteries of pathogenic agents, rather than in treating unique patients. This led them to focus on identifying and naming the pathogens that caused disease, claiming authority over them in the process.