[Alternative medicine: faith or science?]

(Alternativmedizin: Glaube oder Wissenschaft?)

Full Abstract

For the success of both alternative and scientific (conventional) medicine, factors such as the psychological influence of the doctor, loving care, human affection, the patient's belief in the treatment, the suggestive power of attractive (even unproven) theories, dogmas and chance events (e.g. spontaneous remissions) etc. play a major role. Some practices of alternative medicine have a particularly strong appeal to the non-rational side of the human being. Conventional medicine includes a component which is based on scientific and statistical methods. The possibility that in alternative medicine principles and effects exist which are not (yet) known to scientific medicine, but which match up to scientific criteria, cannot be excluded. However, up to now this has not been convincingly proven. The difficulties which arise in the elucidation of this problem are discussed in the light of examples from the literature and some experiments of our own.

Author information

Author/s: Pletscher, A (A);

Affiliation: Departement Forschung, Kantonsspital Basel-Stadt.

Journal and publication information

Publication Type: English Abstract; Journal Article

Journal: Schweizerische medizinische Wochenschrift (Schweiz Med Wochenschr), published in SWITZERLAND. (Language: ger)

Reference: 1990-Apr; vol 120 (issue 16) : pp 571-80

Dates: Created 1990/06/21; Completed 1990/06/21; Revised 2006/11/15;

PMID: 2339286, status: MEDLINE (last retrieval date: 2/18/2009, IMS Date: )

Sourced from the National Library of Medicine. Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright.

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