Overview

"Alternative medicine" may be defined as medicine that is different from "conventional" treatment. These treatments are not based on "modern" concepts of disease. The Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) defines alternative, or "complementary," medicine as "those treatments not taught widely in medical schools, not generally used in hospitals, and not usually reimbursed by insurance." With developments in the last years of the 1900s, this definition will probably change.

In the latter part of the twentieth century, the number of various practitioners of alternative medicine had increased in Western Europe and the United States. It is estimated that half of the U.S. population may go to an alternative practitioner. This figure does not reflect the number of individuals who venture into self-help practices.

One factor in the development of the alternative medicine movement was...