HOME   HYGIENE LIBRARY CATALOG   CHAPTER 23

   This chapter is included as a guide to those intent on escaping the peril and frustration of the ever-expanding medical and drug industry, and having done so, may tend to adopt alternatives not a great deal better.

   Alternative medicine is the name given to a collection of systems and methods intended to cure people's ailments without the use of surgery and drugs. These methods include the taking of synthetic vitamins, minerals and enzymes; acupuncture, chiropractic, homeopathy, herbs and herbal remedies, chelation, DMSO, and so on.

   Orthomolecular medicine is an unorthodox concept of medicine within the category of Alternative Medicine which recognizes dietary errors to be responsible for disease but which concentrates on using synthetic vitamins and minerals to achieve improved body chemistry. In addition, the patient is tested for specific allergies which are then eliminated, but in most cases as with other forms of alternative medicine, the gross fundamental dietary errors are not corrected. Orthomolecular medicine is a "patchwork" system capable of only partial results which may however appear good by comparison to conventional medical treatment.

   Often such "alternative" procedures are claimed to be natural remedies and indeed are less unnatural than removing organs by surgery or poisoning them with drugs. In most cases "alternative medicine" is helpful to sick people to some extent because their pain is relieved and perhaps the symptoms of disease are diminished or removed. Better results are achieved without the damaging side-effects of drugs. However, alternative medicine cannot be said to be natural because if the simple laws of nature are observed then no medicine of any kind is necessary. The body is self-healing.

   Alternative medicine will however, play a valuable part in future treatment of disease simply because many people lack the intelligence and willpower to observe strict lifestyle habits, even when chronically ill.