The world of medicine can seem bafflingly complex, with numerous fields of specialisation apportioned between two broad sectors, generally called conventional and alternative.
The choices about treatment for sickness and ailment, even minor, are plentiful in this 21st century. Even as healthcare practitioners embrace the technological advances and the research breakthroughs occuring in modern medicine, they are turnning with new interest to the alternative, or natural therapies. Venerable healing practices, from acupressure to herbal medicines, from Ayurvedic to Homeopathic, from Unani to Traditional Chinese Medicine and to Yoga and Meditation, are increasingly taking their place alongside modern forms of treatment such as immunotherapy and laser surgery.
Our cover this week is alternative medicine. The distinction between conventional and alternative approaches to medicine is best undrestood in terms of basic perception of health. Conventional medicine or biomedicine, typically views health as absence of disease. The main causes of illness are considered to be pathogens, bacteria or viruses - or biochemical imbalances. Scientific tests are often used in diagnosis, and drugs, surgery, and radiation are among the key tools for dealing with problems. Alternative medicine, by contrast tends to view health as a balance of body systems - mental, emotional, and spiritual, as well as physical. To fight disease alternative medicine uses a wide range of therapies to bolster the body's own defences and restore balance. To-day, alternative medicine is a recognised entity in health care system in the WHO HQ with a section devoted to this and in the USA the highest centre of research namely NIH has a section devoted to this.