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Friday, February 04, 2000 Page: 12A
In health care, the terms traditional and alternative are commonly used to
describe what procedures medical doctors use and what procedures are used by
chiropractors, acupuncturists, herbalists and other non-medical providers
respectively.
A wire report that the paper a while ago questions the use of those terms.
Traditional by definition means that which is handed down. In an article
titled, “Merck Manual maps century of medicine” editor and chief Dr. Robert
Berkow stated, “It’s amusing how little was known 100 years ago. Everything
we know in medicine we’ve learned in the past 100 years.”
By contrast manipulation was used by the Ancient Greeks, acupuncture by the
ancient Chinese and herbology by almost all ancient civilizations. These
procedures date back nearly 5,000 years.
If we use the terms properly, manipulation, acupuncture and herbology
notably outdate medicine and are truly the traditional health-care procedures.
Richard Cohen
Kingston