Alternative medicine

In the past, different medical trends existed in parallel, criticizing each other in the market struggle. Thanks to professional education and merging with the rest of science, medicine gradually became an integral system of practical and theoretical knowledge. At some point, the opportunity appeared to play in contrast with her, which some enterprising people began to do, in particular, in the 18th century, the Perkins family advertised their “stretchers” as a relatively inexpensive replacement for visits to the doctor ^[16] .

In 1796, an American physician, Elisha Perkins, patented a device made of small (~ 7.5 cm) copper and steel rods pointed at one end and called it “ pullers ” ( English tractors ). He sold his invention as a device for treating a variety of diseases at home. At a substantial price (5 times more expensive than a visit to the doctor), “stretchers” were in great demand, primarily due to excellent marketing. The son of the inventor Benjamin founded a company in Europe to trade “pullers” and quickly became rich. The target audience for selling “stretchers” was not only the rich, Perkins Jr. built a clinic for the poor in London, where they treated only “stretchers”. “Pulls” received several fans among doctors, although most were of the opinion that Perkins was a charlatan and a swindler, and the Connecticut Medical Society expelled him from its members ^[17] .

The advertising techniques invented by Perkins are still used in the advertising of alternative medicine. Detailed instructions for self-treatment were attached to the “stretchers”; Perkins was one of the first to contrast his product with medical practice. Perkins also promoted his products with the help of well-known and influential people or using their name up to the first US President George Washington. Criticism from doctors was also used to promote “pullers”, exposing opponents among greedy doctors and supporters prone to charity ^[17] .

In the 19th century, representatives of alternative medicine began to contrast their methods to medical treatment with “chemistry”, while he was silent that everything in the world consisted of “chemistry”. At the same time, alternative teachings appeared on the rejection of toxic substances, chiropractic , homeopathy, hydropathy ^[16] .

Representatives of alternative medicine exploit the lack of medicine that is convenient for them - the complexity of medical knowledge for patients. In alternative practices, the patient is provided with simple explanations of the causes of diseases and understandable attractive methods of getting rid of them ^[16] .

Until the 1970s, the popularity of alternative medicine was small. The huge modern market was the result of the countercultural movement of the 1960s and 70s, when a fashion appeared to contrast themselves with the official system and the official point of view, and at the same time, interest in eastern mystical teachings and “spiritual” practices intensified. Entrepreneurial people combined half-forgotten western and exotic eastern practices and got a phenomenal effect - by the end of the 20th century in western industrialized countries, up to 40% of residents used at least one alternative medicine method. Alternative medicine has become a brand and a multi-billion dollar business. In this case, the initial methods or their justification conceived are distorted up to the exact opposite. For example, modern homeopathy is positioned as a natural treatment, while its inventor Hahnemann based his criticism of medicine on the fact that she is trying to imitate the stupid nature and ineffective defense reactions of the body ^[18] .

Homeopathy

Homeopathy proposes the use of very highly diluted drugs for treatment, ^[19] which are thought to cause symptoms in healthy people similar to those of a patient’s disease. The concept of treatment according to the pseudoscientific principle “ similar to the like ” ( lat. Similia similibus curantur ) is opposed by homeopaths to the methods of rational medical pharmacotherapy , which the founder of homeopathy S. Hahnemann called allopathy ^[20] .

In the XX century, under the influence of advertising, homeopathy in the minds of consumers began to be associated with semi-mystical oriental methods that restore “vitality”, although the essence of Hahnemann’s teachings was exactly the opposite. The misconception that homeopathy treats with herbs has also spread ^[21] .

Naturopathy

Naturopathy is based on a belief in vitalism , the theory that processes in living organisms are inexplicable from a scientific point of view and are controlled by a special supernatural energy, “life force” ^[22] . Some naturopathic directions:

• Aromatherapy
• Apitherapy (treatment with bee products), apiphytotherapy (with the addition of plants)
• Hydrotherapy (hydrotherapy)
• Hirudotherapy (treatment with leeches )
• Starvation ^[23]
• Turpentine baths
• Thalassotherapy (treatment with seaweed, salts, mud)
• Herbal medicine ( herbal medicine )
• Fungotherapy (treatment with mushrooms )

Other methods

• Acupuncture (Acupuncture) and Traditional Chinese Medicine
• Acupressure ( acupressure )
• Ayurveda
• Bioenergy
• “ Vibrational medicine ”
• Image therapy and other methods of “medical qigong ”
• EHF therapy
• Lithotherapy
• "Treatment" by the bath ^[23]
• Kerosene treatment ^[23]
• Magnetotherapy
• Manual therapy
• Bolotov medicine
• Medotherapy
• Mesotherapy
• Osteopathy
• Reiki
• Theta Healing
• Su-jok ( moxibustion moxibustion and other methods of traditional eastern medicine)
• Tibetan medicine
• Urinotherapy (treatment of all diseases with urine, including one stripped off ^[23] )
• Energetic medicine
• Enotherapy (wine treatment)
• “Cleansing the body” or “Cleansing from toxins” ^[23]
• Shiatsu

• Bioresonance diagnostics
• Hemoscanning - diagnosis of the appearance of blood cells
• Iridodiagnosis - diagnosis by the appearance of the iris
• Voll method - diagnosis by measuring the electrical resistance between different points on the skin of a person
• Applied kinesiology is a chiropractic method of diagnosis and therapy, declaring the relationship of muscle tension (tone) with the state of internal organs and body systems and offering methods of corrective non-drug effects on them.
• Diagnostics by language (used in Ayurveda; Chinese traditional medicine)

Sociologists note that in modern society, the desire of people to take care of their health, the demand for medical services is growing. At the same time, the complex, interdisciplinary, integrated nature of medicine creates situations where it is difficult for a layman to understand what is scientifically sound and what is speculative in healthcare, especially in the commercial market. Therefore, in medicine, posing as a connoisseur is much easier than in the natural sciences. The increase in the number of "homemade healers" reflects people's moods, their needs, including dissatisfaction with official medicine. In Russia, in addition to this, due to the systemic crisis of the 1990s, many people lost social guarantees, including in the field of healthcare, and reliable sources of income, they accumulate conscious and semi-conscious anxieties and fears. In conditions of instability, psychological tension and phobias, a person seeks any means of healing and sometimes finds them where they are not and cannot be ^[24] .

Among paramedics are represented both those who are fanatically convinced of the truth of their views, as well as conscious crooks and falsifiers. (At the same time, it seems that over time the former become smaller, and the latter more.) Since a modern person has an enormous credit of trust in science, they use scientific vocabulary to create an illusion. As a result, the "theoretical constructs" of paramedicine acquire the features of scientific nature, turn into an incoherent text from scientific terms. Very often, paramedical justification is a relapse of pre-scientific thinking, dressed in scientifically-made clothes. Paramedics usually declare their advantages compared to traditional medicine with its experience accumulated over centuries. Some branches of paramedicine grow out of a common historical source, traditional medicine, with scientific medicine. Respect for the rational aspects of traditional medicine is mercilessly exploited by paramedicine representatives. In some cases, traditional healers receive public or secret state support ^[24] .

The basis of many forms of paramedicine is not the search for a cure, but an advertisement speculating on human illnesses and suffering. All over the world, patients are less likely to see doctors (official medicine) and at the same time take more and more drugs. Opinion polls in various countries showed that 80% of people self-medicate without going to a doctor. Among consumers of alternative medicine services, researchers identified three groups ^[24] :

1. healthy people who want to stay healthy and young indefinitely, are willing to pay a lot for procedures and rejuvenation drugs ( biohacking , antiaging );
2. people who are inclined to interpret the symptoms of mild ailment as evidence of a serious or incurable disease, in an effort to get rid of an imaginary ailment, insist or easily agree to treatment with experimental methods and unstudied drugs, the literature describes cases of so-called “ iatrogenic ” diseases, for example, speedophobia ;
3. frivolous, who, for various internal reasons, ignoring the threat of a serious illness and side effects of the drugs used, are treated mainly with painkillers and antipyretic drugs and tend to believe advertising like “swallowed - and the pain has passed!” ^[24] .

Advertising of alternative therapeutic methods promises patients with incurable or intractable clinical methods of diseases to relieve pain or completely cure them. In particular, this situation is typical for cancer, and not only in Russia - for example, in the US state of Virginia, an orthopedic surgeon “treated" cancer in patients with aloe juice, for which the Board of State Physicians deprived him of a medical license ^[25] . Under the guise of specialists in informal medicine, drug distributors, religious sects and businessmen often work. They take advantage of the fact that desperate patients, by virtue of their condition, tend to believe in anything ^[24] .

The popularity of alternative medicine is also facilitated by the fact that paramedicine adapts to the interests and needs of the population faster than conventional medical institutions, is not bureaucratic, can change its appearance quite quickly, and is not burdened by moral principles ^[24] .

Modern effective therapy and prevention is fraught with drug complications, which may be more dangerous than the disease itself. Therefore, the increasing attention of patients and doctors is attracted to the means and methods of alternative medicine or paramedical ^[1] .

The scientific journalist, doctor Alexei Vodovozov, cites the following reasons for the popularity of alternative medicine ^[26] :

1. the possibility of self-medication, the absence of unpleasant and painful procedures;
2. global goals, including self-improvement;
3. way of filing - entourage, ritual component;
4. simplicity of explanation and action
5. psychotherapeutic component - at the reception, the representative of alternative medicine has no restrictions on interviews with the patient (the norm is 1.5–2 hours);
6. the representative of alternative medicine always promises a good outcome for his treatment and does not doubt the result, while the doctor is forced to tell the truth according to the informed consent paradigm, including the obligation to talk about side effects and the possibility of a negative outcome.

Russia

Alternative medicine has become widespread in Russia. So, according to the RAS, in Russia there are about 800 thousand healers and only 640 thousand certified doctors. Alternative medicine revenues in Russia are estimated at several billion US dollars per year ^[27] . Some psychologists and psychiatrists believe that the fascination of Russians with mysticism is a side effect of the collapse of the ideology of communism ^{[27] [28] [ page not specified 21 days ]} .

According to a 2007 RAMS study, in Russia 95% of “traditional healers” lack a medical education, and more than 40% of them need treatment for mental disorders ^{[23] [29]} . A regular visit to the “healers” and building a life according to their recommendations can be a sign and a consequence of a disorder of mental adaptation - a magyphrenic syndrome ^[28] .

USA

In 1999, the US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine funded large-scale studies to test the effectiveness of alternative, alternative and complementary therapies, including popular herbal preparations and completely unscientific methods: energy fields, remote healing, etc. As a result, it turned out that the vast majority the studied herbal preparations are indistinguishable from placebo. It also turned out that the treatment methods had practically no effect. Only an indirect effect was revealed in relaxation procedures (reduce pain, anxiety and fatigue) ^[30] .

Czech Republic

In the Czech Republic, hundreds of healers work, about which there is no specific reliable information either from clients or from the state. Until now, the country has not had a single body to control them. After the sensational documentary, the Czech Ministry of Health proposed a law according to which everyone who provides medical services will have to inform the client about their methods, price and possible consequences, keep records, including a full medical history. Moreover, from the moment the law is passed, it will be fully liable for possible damage caused during treatment ^[31] .

The World Health Organization (WHO) does not recommend the use of alternative medicine and is making efforts to promote an evidence-based approach to assess the safety, effectiveness and quality of unconventional methods ^{[32] [33]} in order to confirm or deny them by the scientific method.

Patients receiving treatment using alternative medicine methods are more likely than others to refuse treatment using conventional clinical methods. In cancer patients, this leads to increased mortality. In a cohort study of 2018, when studying case histories of 1.9 million cancer patients, it was found that in a group aged 48–64 years, the frequency of refusals from surgical treatment was 70 times higher, chemotherapy was 10 times higher, radiation therapy was 24 times higher, and 12 times - hormone therapy. The total mortality rate in those treated with alternative methods is 2 times higher than in those treated only with conventional methods ^[15] . One of the researchers, oncologist Skyler Johnson, noted that people believe in untested methods as increasing their chances of survival and recovery, but in fact, the opposite happens ^[34] .

In Australia, from 2001 to 2003, 39 cases of harm to the health of children using non-traditional methods of treatment (the age of patients from several months to 16 years) were recorded. In 30 cases, the health of sick children worsened directly due to the use of alternative therapy, in 17 patients - due to the abandonment of conventional medical methods of treatment. Four patients died ^{[29] [35]} .

Alternative medicine methods are used by individual fraudsters and criminal groups, in some cases professional doctors are present in such groups. All of them, for personal gain, use pseudoscientific “healing” devices, drugs, and dubious treatment methods. In addition to the dangers to the physical health of consumers, such services are dangerous to their mental health ^[28] .

American researchers in controlled experiments from 1999 to 2009 found that different methods of alternative medicine have the following positive effects ^[30] :

1. yoga, massage and other relaxation procedures reduce symptoms: pain, anxiety, fatigue;
2. ginger capsules can reduce the symptom of nausea;
3. in some cases , acupuncture can help, and a placebo has the same effect.

• ethnoscience
• Ethnomedicine
• Healer (Healer)

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