Alternative Health

Most people have a vague understanding of natural health and virtually everyone has at least some small degree of faith in the efficacy of its workings. However, few people are able to articulate natural health as a system of medicine in its own right although most are vaguely aware that such a system exists.

People who use natural health methods, and there are many, have almost invariably chosen these methods as a result their own investigations and research. Information is gleamed from popular magazines and newspapers, from promotional advertisements at health food stores, and from a mind-boggling assortment of natural health practitioners. Even some medical doctors are jumping on the popularity of the natural health band wagon and are suggesting vitamins & minerals to some of their patients.

The inherent difficulty people face with the application of natural health in North America is that the existing medical system (the Standard paradigm) re-interprets all natural health information to suit its own set of health tenets. For example, antibiotic herbs are judged by how well they kill bacteria or virus; or, natural anti-cancer treatments are judged by how effectively they shrink tumours. Simply using a natural substance within the Standard paradigm does not constitute the practice of natural health.

Killing over-blown bacteria and eradicating tumours are tenets in the practice of Standard medicine -- in other words treating the symptom. Symptom treating is generically labeled -- Allopathic care.

Allopathic care is as close to a philosophy of health as the Standard medical system gets to a system of health thought. In the Standard system science is rigorously brought to bear in the treatment of disease. If tumour is the disease then all drugs and surgeries which reduce or eliminate the tumour are scientifically evaluated according to how well the tumour is eradicated. Very serious disease, such as cancer, warrants very caustic and intrusive treatment.

Natural health, in direct contrast with the Standard paradigm, is dripping in moral and natural assumptions from which treatment options are selected. Natural health assumes, quite arbitrarily, that the human species is part-and-parcel of the natural environment and that disease therefore is a disruption of the ecology of the body. Bacterial over-growth is now seen as merely an exploitation of organisms upon an area of improperly functioning or eroding tissue. Cancer is seen as a disruption of the body’s normal functioning due to pollution within the body. Treatment for bacterial over growth then involves restoring health to the tissues and alleviating the causal factors which provoked the tissue to erode in the first place. Treatment for cancer involves cleansing the body of accumulated toxins and preventing or reducing further entry of toxins into the body. The application of natural health techniques is known as the Alternative-health system of medicine.

In Alternative health the questions are asked, “Why has the disease occurred?”, and, “What are the most significant factors in the occurrence of the disease?” It is a fundamental tenet of Alternative health that the body will ever strive to maintain itself in the best possible state of healthful equilibrium. This implies an implicit intellect within the body -- commonly referred to as the body’s Life Force. It is a fundamental tenet of Alternative health that the body builds its constituent components (cells, tissues, organs) from ingredients feed into the body. This tenet has been popularly simplified into the slogan, “You are what you eat.” It is a fundamental tenet of Alternative health to identify the health-restoring actions of the body in disease and then to assist the body in its efforts. This tenet is often paraphrased by natural health practitioners as, “Like cures like.”

Alternative health has taken the name “Alternative” because therapeutic treatments are almost invariably in direct conflict with Standard health treatments. Standard health treatments involve drugs (poisons) and surgeries (damaging the body) while Alternative treatments involve cleansing, feeding, and supporting the body. The caustic and debilitating therapies called for in Standard health are replaced by the nurturing and comforting treatments of Alternative health. Serious treatment in Alternative health means excellent food, a cleaner environment, and intense spiritual and emotional support. Serious treatment in Standard health is as horrific now as it has been for most of medico history. The greatest killing illnesses throughout human history have all been overcome by natural health practices: tuberculosis by good food and fresh air; scurvy by allowing the lowest classes a bit of fresh fruit; bubonic plague by raising the dignity of man; and infant mortality by simply improving living conditions.

Drugs, irradiation, and surgeries are mere illusions propagated by a health care system with no external vetting and no range of choice from which the public, by nature of its consumer dollar, may determine real truth. Democracy, women’s rights, and religious freedom have all been forced to struggle against paternal and monopolistic forces in their rightful efforts to be recognized. So too must Alternative health struggle to have its emergent right carved out from under the oppressive medical establishment of today.

Healer J. Mark Taylor, Medical Herbalist

5, 1922 - 9 Avenue SE.

Calgary, Alberta, Canada T2G 0V2