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Traditional vs modern medicines
Herbal medicine vs conventional medicine
Traditional vs modern medicines
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Herbal Remedies VS. Modern Medicine
When you are sick you take medicine, but there are many remedies for the same problems. The use of herbal remedies traces back to the Chinese in the use of Traditional Chinese Medicine, as well by a compiled book in China written back more than 2,000 years ago (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011). Modern medicine has roots that are more recent in the development and production of synthesize drugs (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011). The old generations took herbal remedies to improve their health, but now as time and people, progressed modern medicine comes on top. Herbal and modern medicines have good and bad points, but one has qualities that are more effective.
Herbal remedies’ qualities are widespread availability, lower cost, effective for chronic conditions. Herbal remedies are the use of plants or plant extract to treat a person’ overall health. Herbal treatments are prominent for developing countries for instance, “in Africa up to 90% and in India 70% of the population depend on traditional medicine to help meet their health care needs” (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011), due to their low cost and availability. Herbal remedies have gained attention in the past decades, and expanding their uses due to the increased interest of natural therapies (Wachtel-Galor & Benzie, 2011). Herbs used on the remedies grow in the wild throughout the world, therefore making it easy to
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Modern medicine mixes chemicals and does extensive testing, while herbal remedies come from naturally grown herbs. For every argument there is two sides, herbal remedies lack dosage instructions, regulations, and may interact with current medication, as well as modern medicines also have improved treatments. With improvements made on information and studies of herbal remedies, they would prevail over modern
Ross defines and differentiates between the terms healing and curing. She recognizes the fact that healing and curing are very intertwined and it can be hard to distinguish between the two terms. There are differences between the definitions in scholarly and general settings. She references an ethnographic study of healing versus curing conducted by anthropologists Andrew Strathern and Pamela Stewart in 1999 with native groups in New Guinea. The results of the study looked at how energy used by the different types of tribal healers to either cure or heal a patient. Eastern medicine focuses on how energy interacts with the healing process in connection within the mind. Whereas Western medicine is focused on the mind and the body separately. The practice is considered a holistic approach to finding cures. According to Ross (2013), healing is more a therapeutic process targeting the whole body and specific illness including emotional, mental, and social aspects in the treatment. The act of curing is a pragmatic approach that focuses on removing the problem all together. The life experiences of a person playing into how well certain treatments will heal or cure what is ailing them. These aspects can not be defined with textbook definitions. The interaction that the healing process has with energy is a variable in the success rate. Uncontrolled emotions can have a greater impact on the inside the body than a person can realize. The exploration of energy interaction within the body can be used for greater analysis of health care systems. (21-22). Are Western healthcare facilities purposely “curing” patients just so that they return are few years later? Is Western Medicine built upon a negative feedback loop? The terminolo...
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is quite complex and can be difficult for some people to comprehend. This is because TCM is based, at least in part, on the Daoist belief that we live in a universe in which everything is interconnected. What happens to one part of the body affects every other part of the body. The mind and body are not viewed separately, but as part of an energetic system. Similarly, organs and organ systems are viewed as interconnected structures that work together to keep the body
Herbal medicine has been around for thousands of years. “The ancient Chinese, Indians, Egyptians, Babylonians, and Native Americans were all herbalists”(Herbs Friends of Physicians). The ancient Greeks and Romans were also herbalists (Herbs Friends of Physicians). Traditional medicine was the dominant medical system used in both rural and urban areas until the arrival of Europeans changed the medical
Mathews, Holly F. "Introduction: A Regional Approach and Multidisciplinary Persepctive." Herbal and Magical Medicine: Traditional Healing Today. Ed. James Kirkland, Holly F. Mathews, C. W. Sullivan, III, and Karen Baldwin. Durham: Duke UP, 1992. 1-13. Print.
Many people don’t believe in medicine at all. The most commonly used treatment is prayer. Ordinary people relied on methods their parents and grandparents used, such as lucky charms, magic spells and herbal cures. Some of the herbal remedies are quite useful. The monks who looked after sick travellers in the monasteries were very skilled in using herbs.
The major use for herbal medicines is for the promotion of health and for therapy for chronic conditions, instead of being used for life-threatening conditions; except in the event of say advanced cancer or new infectious diseases when conventional medicine practices no longer are working an individual may use traditional remedies. While traditional medicines are often mistaken that because they are natural that they are safe, non-toxic, which is not always the case. In cases when an individual is taking herbs with prescription drugs, over-the-counter medications, or other herbs that may cause some adverse side affects. As a flourishing commercial enterprise, it doesn’t matter why an individual uses traditional medicines, it provides important health care services for individuals that have access physically or finantually to allopathic
For many centuries, humanity has been on an eternal quest for cures and treatments for many chronic conditions. At the present time, conventional medicine is mostly performed by doctors and other health care professionals, with the extensive use of pharmaceutical drugs, surgery or radiation treatments for disease treatment. Conversely, even though not as popular, complementary and alternative medicine and treatment options are slowly gaining popularity and becoming an addition to traditional medicine.
...ariety of shapes and forms. There are so many different ways to take these medicines, ways as simple as inhaling the aromas of a hydrolat. While some doctors believe that alternative medicines are just a waste of time and effort because it’s a “junk science”, it has effects on people that in most cases most medicines don’t have. For example medicinal marijuana is often prescribed to patients with eating disorders or taking medicines that completely eliminates the appetite. Alternative medicines may not have and scientific evidence behind it but it does have a lot of visual evidence behind it. By visual evidence I mean evidence provided by observation of patient on the treatment, how they react to it, does it help, will it cause long term effects etc. Alternative medicines are becoming more diverse and they are multiplying like crazy and is the medicine of tomorrow.
In today’s world, many people assume that the latest medical technology and treatments are always the best option. However, all over the world, different techniques for curing diseases and aliments are being used. These methods fall under the category of complementary and alternative medicine.
Every year, approximately 230, 000 to 400. 00 deaths are caused by iatrogenic deaths ( in other words, these are deaths caused by wrong medical treatments). Two of the prominent yet some what contrasting types of medicine are, Ayurveda, the Indian traditional medicine, and Modern (aka western) medicine. Both of these have their own processes and methods of healing, which over the years have created their own followers. While Ayurveda addresses the root causes of the disease through identifying the imbalances in the elements, called “Doshas”, it also emphasizes on a spiritual lifestyle which for most people in today's world is a sea change. On the other hand, western medicine addresses the symptoms and provides instant albeit temporary relief for suffering. Needless to say there are more followers of the western medicine due to its immediate impact on subsiding the pain. Out of lack of awareness to the significance of traditional medicine, especially Ayurveda, many doctors and researchers are against the use of Ayurvedic and traditional medicines, which limits the potential of curing certain ailments of patients without additional side effects.
Modern medicine has eradicated diseases such as smallpox, polio, and malaria in many parts of the world, preventing many deaths. Yet, with many emerging alternative practices, the American society is slowly becoming more reliant on alternative medicines with little scientific evidence. However, one alternative practice, homeopathy, is slowly becoming accepted by many physicians. Now that homeopathy is sanctioned by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA), many physicians and scientists believe that this practice is as effective as allopathic medicine. Even with the acceptance by the FDA, there are still low amounts of prescription medicine based on homeopathy and many homeopathic remedies are not used in hospitals. This creates a question: If many physicians suggest the use of homeopathic medicines, does that actually mean it works; can they be equivalently compared to allopathic medicines? Although homeopathic medicines are considered as alternative medicines, approval by the Federal Drug Administration allows homeopathic medicine to be used in equivalence to over-the-counter allopathic medicine.
Over the centuries, ancients made use of several treatment methods. Two of them are modern medicine and traditional medicine. Alternative medicine is older than modern one. That effective therapy has used for many centuries on the patience when modern medicine has not occurred in the world. Because it has improved in China, it can be called Traditional Chinese Medicine. In contrast, modern medicine has been in used since 1900’s. In this system, drugs’ testes are done in safety laboratories with care and nicety, and their side effects are located before they are given to the patient. However, sometimes the side effects are not blocked so, people have to take another pill to get better. It makes people to take more chemicals into their bodies. Further, modern medicine has splendid efficacy on the fatal diseases. Even, alternative medicine which people’s ancestors utilized stayed in the background when modern medicine has just found, it works at the present time efficaciously. ****** Therefore, using alternative medicine is more helpful to get better than modern medicine because there are fewer drugs, side effects; there is placebo effect and holistic therapy.
http://www.susantannermd.com/articles/benefits-of-natural-medicine.html#.VivAwH6rS00 In a perfect world, alternative medicine and conventional medicine would find ways to co-exist. Helping people balance the benefits of using both. If the world we live in could only find the proper remedy in using both approaches to overall healing, we would have longer life spans. However, today’s society does not allow these medical treatments to co-exist and Americans tend to pick one form of treatment over the other. WORKS CITED Harter, Leona.
Frequently a person believes that herbal medicine is more naturally safe and soothing than drugs. Nevertheless, there’s no reasonable defense about this. Though many consumers trusted herbal medicine much more than the synthetic medicine because it’s safe and effective, but like anything else, it has its own limitations too. There are several hostile issues related to herbal medicine that has been quite alarming. Notwithstanding, majority of the most popular herbs are at least nearly safe.
In the article written by Bonafede (2004), there was provided a general overview of the use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM). This study also required to explore the nature of CAM use and whether CAM use is an alternative to or balance of conventional medicine. According to the author, the western traditional medicine primarily affects the material causes of disease, based on precise research and development. On the other hand, alternative medicine, came to us from Asia, relies on inductive methods of treatment in a comprehensive approach, addressing not only physical but also spiritual and emotional sources of poor health. In addition, clinical treatment has been becoming more and more expensive. So many patients are beginning to look for other ways to get rid of any illness. I agree with the information that such a trend on alternative medicine can be explained by the fact that unconventional medicine is often one drug, plant or psycho-physiological practices are a cure for a multitude of different difficulty and symptoms of disease, while the usual treatment of each drug is designe...