From: Sascha Noyes sascha@pantropy.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2003 11:28:47 -0500 To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Mr-Natural-Health
On Monday 08 December 2003 06:00, Fred Bauder wrote:
There is a relatively clear meaning as to what alternative medicine is and it includes the many methods such as acupucture, chiropractic (in all its forms) herbal medicine, color therapy etc. Some of these are accepted and used by medical doctors, some scoffed at but alternative medicine is an umbrella term that includes them all. Their status in terms of reasearch varies, sometimes by country, herbs, for example, are tested much more in Germany than elsewhere.
Maybe you wouldn't mind sharing that "clear meaning" with us. Simply listing things that are considered alternative medicine does not constitute the definition of the term.
Those who regularly use the term use it to mean the options (alternatives) other than going to an MD.
"Western medicine" is an equally loaded and ill-defined term.
What is meant by conventional medicine is simply what you get when you go to a typical doctor, but more and more frequently that may include alternative medicine.
So if I understand your logic correctly, one gets conventional medicine when one goes to a typical doctor. But one can also increasingly get alternative medicine there. So are conventional and alternative medicine one and the same thing? At what point of adoption does an alternative become conventional? Or is it even usefull to talk in terms of conventionality when discussing medicine? (I submit that it isn't.) Maybe this illustrates that there does perhaps not exist a clear meaning for the term "alternative medicine"?
Best, Sascha Noyes
We had an MD here who also practiced Acupuncture (and he was quite a quack about it too--often using it in dubious ways). That is an example of such a use. One thing about medical doctor licensing: They are permitted to use any method which in their judgement might be effective, for example placebos may legitimately be prescribed in appropriate cases by a medical doctor, or indeed any althernative method he or she might feel approriate, whether or not there is any scientific proof of their effectiveness.
I don't think that confuses the issue or the definitions of conventional versus alternative medicine. It just shows that there is an absence of a sharp boundary. Conventional practice of pills and surgery is still distinguishable from a more holistic approach whether it is a medical doctor or an alternative practicioner delivering the service.
Fre