A medical system that explains illness as being due to impersonal, mechanistic causes in nature that can be potentially understood and cured by the application of the scientific method of discovery. Typical causes accepted in naturalistic medical systems include organic breakdown or deterioration, obstruction, injury, imbalance, malnutrition, and parasites. Students learning to be doctors or nurses in medical schools throughout the modern world are taught this kind of naturalistic explanation. However, there are other kinds of naturalistic medical systems also in use today. In latin america, many people still also rely on humoral pathology to explain and cure their illnesses. This is especially true in rural areas. See personalistic medical system.