Essay About Alternative Medicine And Western Medical Practitioners Today Call

Alternative Medicine
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Alternative Medicine
Throughout recorded history, people of various cultures have relied on what
Western medical practitioners today call alternative medicine. The term
alternative medicine covers a broad range of healing philosophies,
approaches, and therapies. It generally describes those treatments and
health care practices that are outside mainstream Western health care.
People use these treatments and therapies in a variety of ways. Alternative
therapies used alone are often referred to as alternative; when used in
combination with other alternative therapies, or in addition to conventional
therapies they are referred to as complementary. Some therapies are far
outside the realm of accepted Western medical theory and practice, but some,
like chiropractic treatments, are now established in mainstream medicine.
Worldwide, only an estimated ten to thirty percent of human health care is
delivered by conventional, biomedically oriented practitioners (“Fields of
Practice”). The remaining seventy to ninety percent ranges from self-care
according to folk principles, to care given in an organized health care
system based on alternative therapies (“Fields of Practice”). Many cultures
have folk medicine traditions that include the use of plants and plant
products. In ancient cultures, people methodically collected information on
herbs and developed well-defined herbal pharmacopoeias. Indeed, well into
the twentieth century much of the pharmacology of scientific medicine was
derived from the herbal lore of native peoples. Many drugs commonly used
today are of herbal origin: one-quarter of the prescription drugs dispensed
by community pharmacies in the United States contain at least one active
ingredient derived from plant material (“Fields of Practice”).
Twenty years ago, few physicians would have advised patients to take folic
acid to prevent birth defects, vitamin E to promote a healthy heart, or
vitamin C to bolster their immune systems. Yet today, doctor and patient
alike know of the lifesaving benefits of these vitamins. Twenty years ago,
acupuncture, guided imagery, and therapeutic touch were considered outright
quackery. Now, however, in clinics and hospitals around the country,
non-traditional therapies are gaining wider acceptance as testimonials and
studies report success using them to treat such chronic maladies as back
pain and arthritis.
The number of people availing themselves of these alternative therapies is
staggering. In 1991 about twenty-one million Americans made four hundred and
twenty-five million visits to practitioners of these types of alternative
medicine; more than the estimated three hundred and eighty-eight million
visits made to general practitioners that year (Apostolides). The U.S.
Department of Education has accredited more than twenty acupuncture schools
and more than thirty medical schools now offer courses in acupuncture
(Lombardo; Smith). As the number of Western medical institutions researching
alternative therapies increases, the legitimacy of at least some alternative
therapies will also increase.
Does all this recent medical establishment attention mean that the
non-conventional therapies really work? Critics say a definitive scientific
answer must await well-designed experiments involving many patients. Up to
now, most of the studies have relied on personal observation and anecdotal
testimony from satisfied patients. The official position of the American
Medical Association (A.M.A.)–alternative medicines chief critic–is that a
patients improvement or recovery after alternative treatment might just as
well be incidental to the action taken. This may be true for scientists and
researchers, but the fact is that the people seeking alternative treatments
disagree. The solution is obvious: more research needs to be conducted.
Some alternative treatments, such as acupuncture and herbal medicine, have
impressive histories dating back thousands of years. In America,
professional and public interest in the field of alternative care has grown
to such an extent that, in 1992, the U.S. government established the Office
of Alternative Medicine (OAM) within the National Institutes of Health
(NIH). Its mission is to speed the discovery, development, and validation of
potential treatments to complement our current healthcare system. One of the
OAMs first tasks was to develop a classification system for the dozens of
various therapies and practices. The systems of alternative