Реферат: Alternative Medicine Essay Research Paper Throughout recorded

quackery. Now, however, in clinics and hospitals around the country,

non-traditional therapies are gaining wider acceptance as testimonials and

studies report success using them to treat such chronic maladies as back

pain and arthritis.

The number of people availing themselves of these alternative therapies is

staggering. In 1991 about twenty-one million Americans made four hundred and

twenty-five million visits to practitioners of these types of alternative

medicine; more than the estimated three hundred and eighty-eight million

visits made to general practitioners that year (Apostolides). The U.S.

Department of Education has accredited more than twenty acupuncture schools

and more than thirty medical schools now offer courses in acupuncture

(Lombardo; Smith). As the number of Western medical institutions researching

alternative therapies increases, the legitimacy of at least some alternative

therapies will also increase.

Does all this recent medical establishment attention mean that the

non-conventional therapies really work? Critics say a definitive scientific

answer must await well-designed experiments involving many patients. Up to

now, most of the studies have relied on personal observation and anecdotal

testimony from satisfied patients. The official position of the American

Medical Association (A.M.A.)–alternative medicine’s chief critic–is that a

patient’s improvement or recovery after alternative treatment might just as

well be incidental to the action taken. This may be true for scientists and

researchers, but the fact is that the people seeking alternative treatments

disagree. The solution is obvious: more research needs to be conducted.

Some alternative treatments, such as acupuncture and herbal medicine, have

impressive histories dating back thousands of years. In America,

professional and public interest in the field of alternative care has grown

to such an extent that, in 1992, the U.S. government established the Office

of Alternative Medicine (OAM) within the National Institutes of Health