Alternative or Complementary Medicine: History and Legacy

Public Lesture Series, Department of the History of Health Sciences

Alternative medicine is experiencing a spectacular growth, particularly in the very citadels of medical science and technology in the developed world. The growth in number of practitioners and patients devoted to these therapies has created a new global eclecticism in the healing field with important implications for the future of medicine. This lecture series was not designed as an opportunity to feature particular practitioners of alternative medicine to present their wares and express their own preferences and biases; the idea was to offer a single and hopefully balanced historical point of view would lend this series a necessary cohesion and fairness in coverage necessary. This approach, although more difficult and labor-intensive, was deemed essential precisely at a time when individual alternative approaches make headlines and zillions of books on these subjects crowed our bestseller lists. Scholars, in turn, have been excessively preoccupied with professional aspects and the ...

This compilation is largely confined to books, in English. Its original motivation can be traced back to my research and unpublished writing on Classical Chinese Medicine (CCM) in conjunction with an abiding interest in Buddhism, in particular its relevance to the mind and human psychology. The inclusion of literature on the "placebo effect" is not intended to suggest or imply that alternative and complementary medicine is, in the end, simply reducible to evidence of a placebo effect, although, as in (scientific) biomedicine, there is undoubtedly an awareness of its possible and probable role in the healing and health of both body and mind. The title of this bibliography-specifically, the term "complementary"-should make it clear that I don't think alternative medicine and healing traditions are inherently superior to modern biomedicine, indeed, in my own case, I would likely seek out, in the first instance, a physician trained in modern biomedicine for diagnosing the symptoms of an illness that might afflict me; but there are a class (the boundaries of which are not well-defined) of bodily and mental ailments or afflictions that

Clinics in Dermatology, 1998

Medical Principles and Practice, 2005

Asian Bioethics Review, Volume 4, Issue 2, June 2012, 2012

In this essay, we discuss a typical scenario where a patient sought an "alternative" treatment regime (as opposed to conventional "western" medicine) and healthcare professionals (HCP) who were "system apartheid" and less tolerant towards other care systems. Alternative treatment is typically defined as any healing regime that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine. Alternative treatments, also known as Complementary/Alternative Medicine (CAM), have been either used as an adjunct/additional treatment with conventional medicine or as a complete replacement of conventional medicine. Some of these alternative treatments include natural medicine such as herbal or mineral-based products, mind and body medicine such as meditation and faith healing, and manipulative and body-based practices like massage and chiropractics.

Croatian medical journal, 2004

Academic medicine integrates three of the most honorable human activities: treating the ill, teaching, and research. The quality that all three share is persistent quest for truth. However, there is reluctance of academic medicine today to openly defend scientific truth by challenging the arguments and the very existence of "complementary and alternative medicine" (CAM). There is no sound proof of CAM effectiveness, no hypotheses on the mechanisms of their action, nor scientific reports testing them. The fact that patients are charged for these "healing" activities makes CAM a plain fraud. With these facts in mind, the name "complementary and alternative medicine" is undeserved and misleading. CAM advocates maintain that CAM should be recognized precisely because it is widely practiced and very promising, that it has a special holistic/human approach, and works at least as a placebo in situations where medicine can do nothing more. As it seems that the ...

2002

RESEARCH and royals, patients and politicians, counsellors and clinicians–all have recently taken a considerable interest in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Fringe, unconventional, unorthodox, natural and folk medicine have come in from the cold, and CAM is now big business under this new label (Ernst & Furnham, 2000). CAM seems to be favourably perceived by many general practitioners (Easthope et al., 2000).

2019

WHO (World Health Organization) defines health as a complete state of physical and mental wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or weakness. Traditional healing is used for the health treatment, dealing with the health problem, knowledge related the traditional healing and faith. Traditional healers plays the important role in the traditional therapy. It is found that the traditional therapy depends upon the faith and believe on the traditional healer. Aim of this study was to find out the existence and there future aspect of the traditional healing in the societies of developing countries. Some countries are focusing on the development and research framework for traditional therapy. After the study it was concluded that most of the developing countries including India, peoples believes in traditional therapies. If they are suffering from any disease they choose to prefer the traditional healer after that they prefer to go to the medical practitioner. Although there is no...

Journal of Research in Pharmacy Practice, 2015