WHAT IS INTEGRATED HEALTH? CONVENTIONAL AND TRADITIONAL MEDICINE: LEARNING TO LIVE TOGETHER - THE PUBLIC DEMAND

The public demand was so overwhelming that the medical authorities set up a trial, in one of the major hospitals, on the use of Chinese herbs for the treatment of eczema. In order to protect the secret of the true ingredients for the cure of eczema, the Chinese herbalists blended together some 20 herbs and forms of mushrooms in one concoction, some certainly not necessary. The majority of the trial patients were cured, but some had liver damage. Nevertheless, eczema was a major problem and there was no cure in conventional medicine, except for steroid creams which merely suppress the rashes, so in the end the concoction was approved and prescribed under NHS licence. It was sold with a warning that there must be a liver function test before and after taking the product.

Now this is not unusual. Many drugs such as contraceptive pills, antibiotics used for acne treatment, hormone replacement therapy, high doses of vitamins, chemotherapy and anti-tubercular drugs are known to be toxic, some dangerously so, and are only used in conjunction with tests. When they cause illness, which they often do, such illness is known as iatrogenic - illness caused by doctors. Mostly, however, the doctors know that the body can normally cope. The physis (which they don't recognise) is up to it. Yet some conventional doctors remain totally opposed to the use of Chinese herbs to cure eczema because of the risk to the liver. The sad part is that in the hands of the traditional practitioners, who know how to take into account constitution and individuality, these herbs are perfectly safe and require no invasive tests.

Some say the position in the USA is better. There they are carrying out extensive tests on the healing capabilities of plants, mostly I suspect those that have been successfully and safely used by traditional practitioners for centuries. They even have clinics of'integrative' medicine, where a patient goes before a panel, often a large panel, of different specialists, some of whom may practise complementary medicine, and the treatment is then a panel decision. This has three main limitations. First, it is limited to the available practitioners, for example there may be no exponent of marma therapy, by far the most efficacious treatment for stroke patients. Secondly it is very costly, occupying as it does the time of several specialists. Most of all it is bound by the limitations of conventional medicine, which is the controlling culture.

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