This article describes how alternative medicine has had a profound influence in health care in the US. While the above statistics are encouraging, they are not a new phenomena in this country.

In 1924 a survey was done in Philadelphia which showed that a full one third of all patients seen in private practice had been seen by alternative medical healers. Another survey, also completed in 1924, by one of the organizations I formerly belonged to, the Illinois Medical Society, found that in my home town Chicago nearly 90% of people had "dabbled" in alternative medicine.

The article provides a fascinating history of orthodox or traditional medicine in the US. To begin with, only 200 years ago in the US, there were only 200 graduates of US Medical Schools and another 300 or so immigrants with European diplomas.

So there were 500 traditional medical doctors in the US back in 1800. Medical care in 1800 was mostly provided by botanical healers and midwives.

Even 200 years ago there was incredible disagreement between the traditional and natural models.

Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1842) the founder of homeopathy, claimed that the traditional medical doctors of his time (he coined the term allopath) practiced a "non-healing art which shortened the lives of ten times as many human beings as the most destructive wars and rendered many millions of patients more diseased and wretched than they were originally."

This is absolutely amazing, as over 200 years later things have not changed a bit! Last year doctors were documented to be the third leading cause of death in the US.

In 1847 the AMA was founded as a barrier to orthodoxy and the natural healers. Interestingly, until relatively recently, it was unethical for any AMA member to associate with any of these natural healers.

I am ashamed to say that I was a "card carrying" member of the AMA for 7 years, as one of their benefits was the ability to purchase an excellent malpractice policy. But I saw the light about ten years ago and dropped out.

It is interesting to note that even by 1900 in the US, over 12% of the licensed physicians were alternative medical doctors which at the time were classified as homeopaths or eclectic physicians.

It is quite clear the numbers would be much higher if one included unlicensed therapists, such as magnetic healers, chiropractors, faith healers, midwives and osteopaths.

I am an osteopath, but 100 years ago DOs were not recognized as licensed physicians. Back then, they were unlicensed but they were far closer to being true physicians, as they would not rely on drugs and surgery as their primary tools to treat disease.

Now that they are licensed, DOs generally are far closer to traditional physicians than natural medical healers. You can read more of the fascinating history of osteopathic medicine in the recent New England Journal of Medicine review of DOs.

The Annals study concludes that all of the historical data make it quite clear that alternative or natural medicine has always had a powerful and persistent presence in the US.

The article also points out, as has become increasingly clear to any observer of the acceptance of natural medicine in contemporary America, that substantial portions of the traditional medical system have begun to seek reconciliation with alternative medicine.

Managed care, insurance carriers, hospital providers, major academic medical centers and individual physicians are increasingly receptive to developing new integrative models of health care that would have been unthinkable only a short time ago.

My Vision and Passion

It is my current and vision and passion to facilitate this process. I have already started with the establishment of this web site which is on target to be the number one health site in the Internet in the next six months.

The increasing volume of people coming to the site will have access to an ever expanding knowledge base of natural therapies that they can access to facilitate their own healing. In the near future expert moderators will lead many dozens of forums where individualized questions will be answered.

Prior to that, this site will establish the most comprehensive data base of natural medicine physicians in the country. This will allow individuals to add and rate physicians for the type of treatments they provide and the satisfaction they have had with their treatments. Individuals will then be able to use the computerized database to find the best clinicians closest to their own home.

This is a desperately needed tool, as frequently individuals will need individualized expert guidance from someone close to their home.

This service will allow the good clinicians to stand out like lights in the darkness where people can seek out their expert guidance to resolve their health care problems.

I hope to have this project completed in the next year. Once done, it will start an inevitable progression of people who will exit the care of traditional physicians, who never understood how to practice medicine and teach patients how to resolve their illness with natural therapies.

Once traditional physicians reception rooms are nearly empty they will have powerful economic incentives to understand the foundational causes of disease so they can actually go back to school and learn the basic tools that will be required to maximize their incredible investment of their previous outstanding medical education so they can fully serve as a true physician and help their patients resolve their illness at the deepest level.