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The history of alternative medicine

Modern medical care involves many techniques that use technology and computers in order to solve medical problems. These advanced techniques in medical services are very useful in the treatment of different patient. Despite the fact that all these modern techniques are gaining more terrain every day in the conventional medicine, alternative medicine is still present in the treatment of different diseases around the globe. Let’s discover a short history of alternative medicine during the time.

The appearance of alternative healing practices

It is difficult to say exactly when the alternative medicine has appeared. In the past, when medical services were missing, everyone had to solve their diseases in an independent way. If nowadays these methods to cure on your own are considered being as alternative medicine practices in the past these methods were used very often by the people from that period. There are some well known examples of some of the first independent medicine practices, such as the Ayurvedic medicine, which has been developed in India about 5,000 years ago, or the traditional Chinese medicine.

Alternative medicine in the context of scientific medical methods

Nowadays we may speak about alternative medicine or unconventional medicine because we have the conventional medicine as comparison. But in the past, when the medical services were missing, would be impossible to speak about alternative medicine. Due to this, we consider that the history of alternative medicine started when the scientific medical methods has been used to implement  a medical care system around the world and most of the people had access to medical services in specialized units such as medical centers or hospitals. In the literature, the appearance of the alternative medicine is considered to be in the 1970’s, when many traditional medical practices started to group and to form various collective in order to promote alternative medical practices to the conventional medical services. These new collectives had considered traditional or alternative medical practices as complementary to those conventional medical services.

Alternative medicine in the context of globalisation

In the last decades, we had experienced a high level of globalisation. Due to this, alternative medicine could be easily widespread all over the globe. Traditional Chinese medicine has become an important complementary medicine in the western countries. There are statistics that speak about an increasing with 25% of alternative medicine practices in the U.S.A. in the last 15 or 20 years. Ayurvedic medicine has been also implemented in many western countries in the last years. Nowadays, Internet connection facilitates the access to many alternative medicine practices and many people are trying to use these practices, considering them cheaper and less invasive for their bodies.

As you may see from above, in a contemporary world with plenty of digital techniques and medical equipment, alternative medicine it is still used in different ways in the treatment of a wide range of diseases or health issues. It is true that these alternative medicine practices are more widespread in developing countries or undeveloped countries, but even in developed countries these practices are still present.