(The Best Years in Life In contrast to at least 6000 years of the practice of natural medicine, Western medicine treats the body as a collection of parts instead of as a synergistic organism. When it comes to treating broken bones and injured body parts, mainstream Western medicine is unequaled. When this same approach is used to treat illness and diseases such as cancer - fixing or repairing the parts where the symptoms of underlying illnesses manifest themselves, modern medicine fails miserably. Read More.