The main concern of medicine used to be human physical condition as it was believed that a person's illness was due to physical problems, something was wrong with his body. A paradigm is a model of how science is to be conducted. The Biomedical paradigm. The dominant paradigm of medical science in the 20th century is the biomedical model. This paradigm has been strongly influenced by Cartesian dualism.
Cartesian dualism defines mind and body as separate substances.
Functions of the mind and the body were believed to be radically different. Images and emotions which belong to the mind, cannot affect the body. The discovery of external agents of diseases such as bacterium, viruses, and chemical and vitamin deficiencies fortified the strength of this belief. Within this understanding, only the biomedical factors are considered. Social, psychological and behavioural dimensions being outside the physical functioning component are therefore ignored.