Alternative Medicine - An Overview  
by: Dr. Leo Rebello (leorebello@indolink.com)
Holistic Healing is a descriptive term for a healing philosophy that views a patient as a whole, not at his disease or symptoms. In the course of treatment, a holistic healer may address a client s emotional and spiritual dimensions as well as the nutritional, environmental and life-style factors that may contribute to an illness. Some holistic practitioners combine conventional forms of treatment with natural or alternative treatment.

Holistic Healing is also known as Alternative Medicine . In 1973, the Medical Faculty of the University of Rome convened the first World Congress of Alternative Medicine, and the provisional programme contained no less than 135 different therapies, which could be used as alternatives to the deleterious allopathic system of medicine. Traditional medicine was incorporated in the World Health Organization s programmes in 1976. In 1978, an International Conference on Primary Health Care was held in Alma-Ata, which gave the slogan Health for All by the Year 2000 . That lofty goal was not achieved and now we have forgotten it. Though WHO has a separate department to promote traditional and natural systems of medicine, very little is done in that direction since WHO has largely been hijacked by the pharmaceutical mafia.

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IS ALSO KNOWN AS:

  • Traditional medicine (as most of these are practiced from time immemorial);

  • Complementary medicine (as some allopathic medicine practitioners use them to supplement their medicines to reduce the iatrogenic effect of their drugs);

  • Holistic medicine (since a patient is looked at as a complete being comprising of physical, mental, social and spiritual dimensions);

  • Ethno medicine (as these traditional health care systems are closely associated with the life and culture of the masses);

  • Natural medicine (as these methods of treatment are based on the laws of nature and natural substances are used to treat the patients).

Every country, region or area has its own traditional system of health and medical care. For the Chinese it is acupuncture; for the French - magnetic healing, for the Germans - heilpraxis, for the British - herbalism; for India - ayurveda; in the Muslim countries, it is unani; in Japan it is shiatsu, and so on.

SALIENT FEATURES OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE:

  1. Considers the human body as a whole being, that is, the sum total of its physical, mental, social and spiritual dimensions.

  2. No side effects.

  3. Remedies are based on natural ingredients or they are drugless.

  4. Low cost.

  5. Simple to prescribe and practice.

  6. Preventive and promotive aspects of health are equally cared for.

  7. Permanent cure for many so-called incurable and chronic diseases.

  8. Faith of the people.

Dr. Leo Rebello is the Director of Natural Health Centre, Bombay. He is an eminent Naturopath and Holistic Healer with over 25 years of clinical, teaching and research experience.

He has written 24 books, and lectured in 50 countries - including at WHO, UNESCO, UNDP, Nobel Foundation and other conferences. He has Trained and treated thousands around the world.