History of Alternative Medicine

Because Alternative Medicine covers a wide range of health-care modalities, let’s explore the evolution of Alternatives as a fabric of many weaves, a “cloth”, as you will, of many threads that often go back to the beginning of time.  Because practitioners of Alternative Medicine often draw from different schools and modalities, let’s take an organic and wide-ranging overview of the field.

*Of Note* … “Traditional” can sometimes be used interchangeably to refer to either “Western” medicine or “Original” medicine that has been used historically by cultures dating back thousands of years.  In that light, we’ll refer to modern “establishment” medicine as “Western Medicine” … and more ancient, aboriginal, or cultural forms of medicine, as “Traditional”.  (Example: the term Traditional Chinese Medicine – often called TCM – embodies an art of Alternative Healthcare that is thousands of years old).