Yet today, doctor and patient alike know of the lifesaving benefits of these vitamins. Twenty years ago, acupuncture, guided imagery, and therapeutic touch were considered outright quackery. Now, however, in clinics and hospitals around the country, non-traditional therapies are gaining wider acceptance as testimonials and studies report success using them to treat such chronic maladies as back pain and arthritis.
The number of people availing themselves of these alternative therapies is staggering. In 1991 about twenty-one million Americans made four hundred and twenty-five million visits to practitioners of these types of alternative medicine; more than the estimated three hundred and eighty-eight million visits made to general practitioners that year (Apostolides). As the number of Western medical institutions researching alternative therapies increases, the legitimacy of at least some alternative therapies will also increase.
Does all this recent medical establishment attention mean that the non-conventional therapies really work? Critics say a definitive scientific answer must await well-designed experiments involving many patients. Up to now, most of the studies have relied on personal observation and anecdotal testimony from satisfied patients. The official position of the American Medical Association (A.M.A.)--alternative medicine's chief critic--is that a patient's improvement or recovery after alternative treatment might just as well be incidental to the action taken. This may be true for scientists and researchers, but the fact is that the people seeking alternative treatments disagree. The solution is obvious: more research needs to be conducted.
Some alternative treatments, such as acupuncture and herbal medicine, have impressive histories dating back thousands of years. In America, professional and public interest in the field of alternative care has grown to such an extent that, in 1992, the U.
