Alternative medicine
Alternative medicine is medicine that stands in different kinds of polarities to conventional medicine. The following table contains aspects because of which medical systems may be called alternative.
Aspect | conventional medicine | alternative medicine | respective term | |
---|---|---|---|---|
Science | scientific | unscientific, not scientific, pseudoscientific | scientific medicine | pseudoscientific medicine |
Distribution | mainstream | practiced by minorities | mainstream medicine | |
Relation to common sense | orthodox | unorthodox | orthodox medicine | unorthodox medicine |
conventional | unconventional | conventional medicine | unconventional medicine | |
Where is it being tought? | academic (tought on universities) | known by common people or staff without academic education | academic medicine | |
Practiced by | doctors | Mostly non doctors: healers, common people, naturopaths | ||
Quality, safety, harmfulness | quackery | quackery | ||
Cultural origin | based on western culture | based on different cultures | western medicine | traditional medicine |
Paradigmata | Reductionism, materialism | Acceptance of i.e. life forces, spirit or soul |