Complementary or Alternative Medicine (CAM) – 1796

Many people turn to complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), which includes medical practices not considered part of what we call modern or conventional medicine. Complementary means these treatments are used alongside modern medicine; alternative means they are used instead of it.

Examples include acupuncture, Ayurvedic medicine, chiropractic, traditional Chinese medicine, meditation, yoga, hypnosis, cupping, wet cupping and homeopathy. For example, chiropractors often manipulate the spine to relieve “nerve dysfunction”, while homeopaths believe that if a substance causes particular symptoms at high doses, very low doses may relieve those symptoms, and practise accordingly.

The foundations of alternative or complementary medicine are traced to 1796, when German physician Samuel Hahnemann proposed homeopathy. Chiropractic was founded by American Daniel Palmer in 1895. The benefits of alternative medicine or remedies may arise from the placebo effect. The history of medical treatment itself includes many old therapies, now seemingly strange, that also drew on placebo effects. Modern treatments, however, were approved and developed when they proved substantially more successful than placebo.

Some people choose alternative treatments because they fear surgery or potential drug adverse effects. Disadvantages include the lack of systematic testing and the possibility of leading people to reject more effective mainstream treatments.

Dr Allan Rosenfield: “In many parts of the world, medicines are not readily available or accessible, so people continue using traditional remedies from their cultures. At the same time, wealthy consumers in the industrialised world spend their own money on alternative medicine, on a much larger scale than generally thought.”

Description of the article image: Moxibustion is a traditional Chinese medicine technique involving burning dried mugwort. Sometimes a cone of moxa is placed on the skin and burned, or a heated moxa stick is used. Ginseng has been used medicinally for centuries.

Historical figures mentioned in the article: Christian Friedrich Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843), Daniel David Palmer (1845–1913)

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