Orthodox Versus Alternative Medicine

Abstract

Physicians, who have often spent more than a fifth of their working life in training, are naturally jealous of those who have spent half that or none at all in higher education, yet who presume to treat disease as effectively as they. Besides, the physician knows the location of every fiber in the body and can trace the path by which sensory impulses of sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch are transmitted through nerves to the muscles or to the brain. If as this century closes, physicians do not yet understand the molecular mechanisms involved in sorrow, anger, elation, or despair, neither do faith healers, acupuncturists, or homeopathic practioners. The nontraditional therapist is naturally resentful of the professional, when his own type of treatment yields the same, or an even better, result than that of the trained physician. The term nontraditional is used merely to distinguish such practitioners from trained physicians; within his own field, the trained acupuncturist is, of course, as professional as any surgeon, even if his methods by Western standards are not wholly accepted. Such rivalries between professionals and nontraditional practitioners or amateurs have existed for centuries, and are not confined to medicine. What professional artist or writer does not feel jealousy when a picture painted by an amateur like Winston Churchill is rated better than his own, or when a retired politician writes a bestseller? Conversely, what amateur biologist, like Charles Darwin, does not feel irritation when his ideas are rejected by the professional establishment of the day?