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<br />ACfJipu1J1lct1JJlll'e @JlJ1U!l ([}ll'ielJllt@J1 M e(f!jicine in the <br />United St@tes <br /> <br />History doubles back on itself. Before modern Western medicine was <br />developed, people relied on natural products and methods to heal themselves. <br />Many of these natural remedies were and are very effective, but they cannot deal <br />with all of the suffering that both nature and industrialization bring to human <br />beings. Because antibiotics, surgical intervention, and other wonders of modern <br />medicine can be so dramatically effective, they have swept the world in the last <br />hundred years, with the result that older fOnTIS of medicine have often been <br />displaced or discredited. But it is true that, just as modern medicine <br />demonstrated the limitations of natural medicine, so we are now beginning to <br />recognize the limitations of Western medicine. The "magic bullets" of <br />antibiotics or steroids, for example, have turned out to be a mixed blessing, with <br />many side effects and unforeseen complications. Medical specialties have such a <br />tight focus on a particular organ or disease that the patient often feels that he is <br />just a "heart" or a "cancer" to his doctor, and that his emotional and spiritual <br />needs are not even recognized, much less addressed. More and more people are <br />once again looking to older, more integrated fOnTIS of medicine to address the <br />perceived body-mind-spirit connection that has been subordinated to modern <br />technology. The most significant development in health care in the past few <br />years has been the increasing acceptance of complementary medicines by the <br />public. Chinese medicine, possibly because the acupuncture needles offer such <br />striking visual images, has become almost the poster child of complementary <br />medicines, featured in many cover-page magazine stories. Today, TCM - a <br />medical system that has been in continuous use for the last 4,000 years - is <br />steadily gaining popularity in the United States and around the world. <br /> <br />ACl!lljpJ1lll!!JHctl!llIrle ~nnd! ((])Irllenn~~nlWled!llcllnnle 1U~llnll71~tlll{])nn <br /> <br />Harvard Medical School professor, Dr. David Eisenberg, published a landmark <br />report in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1993. He reported that one <br />third of Americans had received complementary and alternative medicine <br /> <br />10 <br /> <br />"' ....... - <br />