Question:
What to make of the new science of alternative medicine?

Answer: Just by itself, thedemonstration that holding burning herbs near an acupuncture point can rotatebreech-position babies indicates that Western medicine has more work ahead ofit as it attempts to explain alternative medicine. But proof that some of thetechniques work may be more important than the explanation given the growth ofalternative medicine. A recent national survey (see "Trends in AlternativeMedicine... " in the bibliography) found that the most popular therapies --relaxation, herbal medicine, massage and chiropractic -- were all visited bymore than 10 percent of the national population sample during the previousyear.

Alternative medicine is also booming at the federal level. The annual allowanceof the Office of Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health wasjust raised from $20-million to $50-million. The six-year-old office was alsograndly retitled the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicineand given the ability to fund research. The office has been part of a slowlygrowing -- call it a tidal ripple -- interest in evaluating alternativetherapies by the same standards as prescription drugs.

What's the draw?Why is alternative medicine so popular? Partly because of frustration and fearamong the patients who can't be cured with standard therapies. Partly becauseconventional medicine is expensive and can cause serious side effects. Partlybecause alternative healers can afford to spend more time with patients thanconventional doctors.

And partly because some of the techniques work.

For all these reasons, these outsider therapies must be put to the test."Alternative medicine is here to stay," writes Wayne Jonas, head of theNational Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine at the NationalInstitute of Health. "It is no longer an option to ignore it or treat it assomething outside the normal processes of science and medicine." The challenge,he says, "is to move forward carefully, using both reason and wisdom, as weattempt to separate the pearls from the mud" (see "Alternative Medicine --Learning..." in the bibliography).

Some therapies -- notably the ones that derive from Chinese medicine -- reflecta long tradition of trial and error, and reflect a view of the human body thatWestern medicine thinks "comes from far left field," writes Alan Bensoussan, aChinese doctor who does research at the University of Western Sydney Macarthurin Australia. "You must remember these are routine medicines used in very largepublic hospitals in China and Korea at least. Western medicos would prefer towait and see until the 'active ingredient' has been found, isolated,concentrated and standardized, but I suspect they'll be waiting a long time tofind any single pharmaceutical agent that matches the benefit of a whole,albeit complex, Chinese formula. We don't really have good models inpharmacology to explore the interaction of a large number of potentially activesubstances. Yet in traditional terms these formulas are designed on the basisthat, for example, one herb will support the action of another whilstdetoxifying a third."

Despite such difficulties, the growth of alternative medicine has spawned talkof "integration," a sort of joint venture through which alternative medicinecan learn from the scientific scrutiny of conventional medicine, while Westerndoctors learn about dealing with patients as whole human beings. As Jonaswrites, "Empowerment, participation in the healing process, time, and personalattention are essential elements of all medicine. Conventional medicine mustdevelop a better language for managing illness and suffering" which is part ofthe "essential message that alternative medicine provides."