Did you know that western medicine doctors use to prescribe herbs to their patients?
When a person went through medical school to become a medical doctor at the turn of the 20th century, herbal medicine was all the medicine that was available. Pharmaceuticals was not in the picture. They didn’t come along until much farther down the timeline. This was true for medical doctors and for veterinarians (although veterinarians didn’t come on the scene until later on). The medical doctors would diagnose their patients, whether humans or animals, and then treat them with the medicine that was available, which was herbal medicine.
For centuries, even before the term of a trained ‘medical doctor’, herbs were used to treat anything from bleeding, blood pressure, headaches, gout, eczema, psoriasis, heart attaches, joint pain, broken bones, etc. People grew up knowing the medicine that was growing on their property and how to use it for their particular ailments. They learned from a young age what was good, what was bad, and what to do or not do with the plants growing around them. So, when did this change? In 1965, the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) began regulating medications. Let’s delve deeper into why they began doing this.
An herb or anything that is natural on the earth, can not be patented. However, if parts of an herb are mixed with toxic chemicals, it can then be patented. That is called a pharmaceutical. What it boils down to is anything that can be patented, can then be sold for profit.
Herbs have been slowly taken away from the mainstream, medical doctors are only taught pharmaceutical medications, and we have been programmed to believe pharmaceuticals are the only medications available. There really aren’t many people in today’s time that can say they have been raised from birth knowing that herbs are medicine and how to use them.
The majority of medical doctors are quite dismissive of alternative medicine, and many medical doctors are positively hostile towards it. Medical doctors say this is because there is no scientific proof that alternative medicine actually works. I believe this is a smokescreen; the real reasons medical doctors are so against alternative medicine are much, much deeper.
Medical doctors are scared of alternative medicine: they feel deeply threatened by it because they have not been trained in it. Medical doctors have spent years of their lives studying and working within the modern medical health system and after all their years of study, sacrifice and hard work, they feel threatened by doctors trained in natural healing who can help a patient in ways they cannot. The beliefs of doctors of natural medicine are about treating the cause, not just the symptom, and this way of treating is very different from those of the medical profession.
Ironically, in many ways, medical doctors have only themselves to blame for the astonishing growth in alternative medicine. It is the medical profession’s own dismissive attitude to alternative medicine and their almost total reliance on drugs as the only valid form of therapy. The major inadequacies of the medical system and the medical profession’s failure to look at the whole person, has driven people to look elsewhere to have their health needs met.
Fortunately, due to the recent years of the government wanting to control our health, there has been a remarkable growth of alternative medicine. We do still have a long ways to go, but people wanting to get back to their roots and naturally treat their bodies has been on the upswing.
Medical doctors say that alternative medicine remains scientifically unproven, and therefore cannot be trusted. What these medical doctors do not say is that many of the everyday medical practices and treatments are also scientifically unproven, but that doesn’t stop medical doctors from prescribing them. Even with pharmaceutical prescriptions, we do not know the life long effects of how these chemicals will interfere with the liver or how they can cause other problems within the body.
I’m sure you have heard many times how a pharmaceutical medication is being taken off the market because of all the damage it has done to the person’s who have consumed this medication. Herbs are natural. My own impression is that, overall, the safety record of alternative medicine is far superior to that of modern medicine.
Unfortunately, many states within the US will not allow natural medicine as an option to their residents. How is this right? Tennessee, South Carolina, and Florida are the three states in which natural medicine is regulated. For any person who have went through licensed training, they are unable to practice if they live in these states. I feel this is a disservice to the residents of these states. Those people should have an option of either seeing a traditional medical doctor or an alternative doctor of natural medicine for their medical needs.
The medical profession’s refusal to take alternative medicine seriously suggests to me that the welfare of the patient is not the profession’s prime motivation. Self-interest, and the vested interests of the medical profession, insurance companies, and the pharmaceutical industry, are preventing the development of a truly holistic health-care system, for which the public has a right to understand and choose if they want.
Do you live in a state that will not allow you to choose natural medicine if that is the way you want your healthcare to go? Do you feel every person of every state in the US should have the freedom to choose if they see a medical doctor or doctor of natural medicine? I truly would love to hear your opinions.
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Stay natural!
~Dr. Amanda P. Cartwright