What is "alternative medicine" an alternative to?
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Medicine.
Correct! :)
Altenative usualy means without the use of drugs.
Herbalism often involves the use of herbs that contain drugs, and homeopathy involves use of medicines that would be classified as drugs if they had the effects they claim to
Total Answers: 3, Total Page Views: 179.Alternative medicine is an alternative to allopathic medicine - the type of medicine practised by most medical doctors. Before modern medicine, the medicine that was practised by healers included several of the modalities now termed alternative (herbalism and homeopathy for example), and modern medicine was originally based on these. As the medical establishment became stronger it sidelined these other modalities, probably as much from financial and status concerns than from concerns that they were ineffective.
Over time, alternative medicine has grown to include many new modalities, as well as those, like acupuncture, that have a long history of effectiveness in other cultures. Energy medicine appears to be the fastest growing modality in the alternative field and includes such treatments as Reiki, healing touch, therapeutic touch, cranio-sacral therapy and quantum touch to name just a few. While these may appear to be based on woo-woo ideas, it is now recognised by many (except for most allopathic physicians) that we are essentially energy bodies.
The big advantage that alternative medicine has over allopathic medicine that there are few if any side effects and the risks of harm are low.
It is probably only a matter of time before allopathic medicine becomes the alternative when used in any situation except major trauma or acute situations like heart attack.
Modern medicine has taken the bits of traditional medicine (such as herbalism) that were found to work, and refined them to maximise effectiveness and minimise side-effects.
As an example, aspirin is derived from remedies made from the bark of the willow tree that were found to genuinely be effective.
But aspirin excludes the chemicals in the bark that were found to cause side-effects and allows the amount of the active ingredient to be given in a controlled dose.
Science recognises that we are composed of energy, but that energy is in the form of matter, not the vague, ill-defined and mysterious "energy" invoked by many systems of alternative medicine.
Not only to they appear to be based on woo-woo ideas, they also fail to prove effective above placebo in clinical trials.
Mainstream medicine has conducted, and still conducts, trials of various forms of alternative medicine, and those which are found to be effective become part of the mainstream.
This is why, as Tim Minchin puts it, "alternative medicine is medicine that has not been proven to work, or has been proven not to work".
Alternative medicine that has any measurable effects beyond placebo has just as many, or more, side effects than mainstream medicine.
Most "energy based" alternative medicine as shown no significant effect (and so no side effect) at all in clinical trials.
"Allopathic" is a deliberately misleading term used only by alternative medicine supporters as a pejorative. Mainstream medicine is more accurately described as "evidence based" or "scientific" medicine, or more simply just "medicine".
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