I've had a class in Hydrology and also read "Salt Dreams" (about water in Southern California) and a book about the history of water development in Fresno County.
Modern people often seem to have mental models of the world where a river has a set place, similar to a road. This is not accurate.
Water percolates down into the soil. Rivers meander. The amount and type of plants impacts rain patterns.
Water is constantly moving and cycles through the air and moves through the ground, both largely invisible to the naked eye, but critical to the pieces we can readily see. Plus, its movement occurs in a larger context, such as the Moon causing ocean tides.
The human body's relationship to water is similar. It isn't just limited to how much you drink, how much you sweat and how much you pee.
Like the Earth's crust, your skin takes in water. aso, for example, you can get hydrated with a bath, especially a salt water bath. This is helpful to understand if you are so sick that you are having trouble taking anything by mouth.
My condition predisposes me to retain fluids. I've made progress on reducing the chronic bloat in part because I have mental models for how water moves through the environment.
Invasive species disrupt ecosystems. This is not unlike infection.
Trying to fix a thing like that is far more complicated than our current medical mental model of just giving out antibiotics for infection.
On some island, someone wanted to eradicate mosquitoes. They poisoned the mosquitoes, which all died. Small animals ate they poisoned mosquitoes and they died too. This went through several layers, almost like the Biblical plagues (deconstructed and analyzed by modern science on some TV show).
Those sorts of things influence my concept of the body's relationship to disease. I don't accept the mental model that "Well, just add antibiotics to the mix and voila! All better now!"
We know antibiotics kill gut flora. We know gut flora are critical to our digestion and even help provide certain nutrients. We know that killing gut flora not only screws up digestion, it also promotes the overgrowth of Invaders like E. Coli.
Yet we currently do not have a policy of making sure to remediate what antibiotics do to the body. We assume the gut will just repair itself over time without active intervention.
Some individuals know to at least eat yogurt, but doctors do not give out handouts with recommendations for "The Post Antibiotics Diet."
And then we kind of shrug if someone "mysteriously" develops serious and chronic gut issues. Broader society also seems to fail to understand the gut as the foundation of the immune system.
