It’s easy to give a “distinguished” looking middle-aged white man in a lab-coat the status of an authority figure but in my opinion as much respect if not more should be given to a wise-woman folk herbalist who has been keeping her community healthy with the herbs she grows and collects and makes into medicine.

Date:   4/23/2006 12:56:04 PM ( 18 y ago)

Why I will not use the phrases “Alternative Medicine” or “Complimentary Medicine” ever again.

Diversity is health. Lack of diversity is patently unhealthy.

Choice is empowering. Competition is empowering.

To me, calling Natural Medicine “Alternative Medicine” or “Complimentary Medicine” -while well meaning by some, ends up being fundamentality disrespectful and a distortion of the reality on the ground.

Herbal Medicine and other forms of Natural Medicine are at least 30,000 years old, allopathic medicine is only about 75 years old. Natural Medicine is the main form of health care practiced by 70% of the world’s population in every culture and every geographic location. So why would we push Natural Medicine to the sidelines and give it inferior status to allopathic medicine with the language we use?

Allopathic medicine should be forced to compete for respect and recognition on an even playing field with Natural Medicine, but with medical industrial complex exercising massive influence over the educational system, the government and the media, too many people have been conditioned to give high-tech synthetic medicine a reverence it hasn’t earned.

It’s easy to give a “distinguished” looking middle-aged white man in a lab-coat the status of an authority figure but in my opinion as much respect if not more should be given to a wise-woman folk herbalist who has been keeping her community healthy with the herbs she grows and collects and makes into medicine. Unlike the over-paid doctors, the wise-women herbalists have never caused the hundreds of thousands of death by medicine that doctors do every year, in fact they cause virtually no deaths. Unlike high-tech synthetic medicine our traditional herbalists keep their communities healthy by preventing disease and by empowering others to understand and love their bodies. They treat people like the individuals they are and embrace a system of health that restores balance to your whole life.

My undying respect goes out to the folk herbalists, the medicine men and woman, the midwives, the bush doctors and the shamans. You are the keepers of the flame of Natural Medicine.

Christopher Scipio
Homeopath/Herbalist
African Bush Doctor
http://www.natropractica.com


 

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