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Traditional healing modalities...

by Maireid Sullivan
2012, updated 2022
Work in progress
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Introduction
Reflections

Part 1
Everything old is new again.

Part 2
Traditions refined over several thousands of years.

Part 3
BACH Flower Remedies

Introduction

The people of Switzerland have voted!
"In May 2017, health insurance plans in Switzerland will be covering a variety of healing modalities, including homeopathy, acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, herbal medicine and holistic medicine.
In this way, Switzerland will be bringing back the many healing arts that were used successfully in the past."
Learn more HERE

WHO global report on traditional and complementary medicine 2019

Excerpt: Traditional and complementary medicine (T&CM) is an important and often underestimated health resource with many applications, especially in the prevention and management of lifestyle-related chronic diseases, and in meeting the health needs of ageing populations …
This report reviews global progress in T&CM over the past two decades and is based on contributions from 179 WHO Member States. It clearly shows that more and more countries are recognizing the role of T&CM in their national health systems. For instance, by 2018, 98 Member States had developed national policies on T&CM, 109 had launched national laws or regulations on T&CM, and 124 had implemented regulations on herbal medicines.
Countries aiming to integrate the best of T&CM and conventional medicine would do well to look not
only at the many differences between the two systems, but also at areas where both converge to help tackle the unique health challenges of the 21st century. In an ideal world, traditional medicine would be an option offered by a well-functioning, people-centred health system that balances curative services with preventive care.
WHO is halfway through implementing the WHO Traditional Medicine Strategy 2014–2023…
Download full report (pdf)

Reflections

The Flexner Report - 100 Years Later
by Thomas P. Duffy, MD
NCBI: Yale J Biol Med. 2011 Sep; 84(3): 269–276.
Abstract
The Flexner Report of 1910 transformed the nature and process of medical education in America with a resulting elimination of proprietary schools and the establishment of the biomedical model as the gold standard of medical training. This transformation occurred in the aftermath of the report, which embraced scientific knowledge and its advancement as the defining ethos of a modern physician...

A key lesson on BigPharma history.
The Spanish Flu (1918-1920)
began in France during the WWI when more than two million people gathered from all over the world. They returned to their homes, carrying the virus, and at least 50 million people died (CDC).

Bayer Aspirin, formulated in 1899 to reduce fever, became the leading pharmaceutical treatment for the Spanish Flu, when, in hindsight, it was discovered that a fever was required to suppress the virus.

While Aspirin has long been criticized, recent warnings include this:
"Effect of aspirin on deaths associated with sepsis in healthy older people (ANTISEPSIS): a randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled primary prevention tria" - NCBI, 2020

Bayer's 2016 purchase of Monsanto is well documented
Details on Bayer history via the Holocaust Encyclopedia:

The Founding of Bayer:
1. Best known for their path-breaking anti-inflammatory pain reliever, Aspirin, the Bayer pharmaceutical company was founded in 1863.
2. Bayer became part of IG Farben, a powerful German chemical conglomerate, in 1925. ...
As part of the IG Farben conglomerate, which strongly supported the Third Reich, the Bayer company was complicit in the crimes of the Third Reich. In its most criminal activities, the company took advantage of the absence of legal and ethical constraints on medical experimentation to test its drugs on unwilling human subjects. These included paying a retainer to SS physician Helmuth Vetter to test Rutenol and other sulfonamide drugs on deliberately infected patients at the Dachau, Auschwitz, and Gusen concentration camps. Vetter was later convicted by an American military tribunal at the Mauthausen Trial in 1947, and was executed at Landsberg Prison in February 1949. >>>more

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In the middle of the 17th century, an extraordinary group of scientists and natural philosophers coalesced as the Oxford Circle and created a scientific revolution in the study and understanding of the brain and consciousness…

THE HOPKINS CIRCLE
... membership of the Circle affirms a particularly American phenomenon in which an aristocracy of excellence was not defined by one’s origins or wealth, although wealth permitted the group’s recommendations to be successful.... >>>more

Hanneman
Washington DC monument, dedicated in 1900,
to Samuel Hahnemann, MD,
(1755-1843), "Father of Homeopathy"
The only monument in Washington Honoring a Physician

Excerpted by The Homeopathic Revolution (2007),
by Dana Ullman, MPH, CCH -
(See NCBI review)
Although trained as a medical doctor, Hahnemann was a learned chemist and author of the leading German textbook for apothecaries (pharmacists) of the day. He was conversant in at least nine languages and even supported himself in his mid-twenties teaching languages at the famed University of Leipzig.

Learning languages enabled Hahnemann to become familiar with the latest developments in medicine and science. He further expanded his knowledge and his growing prestige by translating twenty-two textbooks, primarily medical and chemistry textbooks (several of which were multi-volume works). Over a twenty-nine-year period, Hahnemann translated some 9,460 pages. >>>more


The history, as told by Elizabeth Murphy,
on September 7, 2021
(private correspondence)

Just a century ago, in the US, there were 22 homeopathic medical schools, 100 homeopathic hospitals, and over 1,000 homeopathic pharmacies. Boston University, Stanford University, and New York Medical College all taught homeopathy.

This all changed due to the Flexnor Report (1910) — officially known as Medical Education in the United States and Canada — in 1910. The report was an attempt to align medical education under a set of norms that emphasized laboratory research and the patenting of medicine. The report was funded by John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, among others.

Rockefeller and Carnegie offered grants to the best medical schools in America — with a caveat: only an allopathic-based curriculum could be taught. Thus, Rockefeller and Carnegie systematically dismantled the courses of these schools by removing any mention of the natural healing power of herbs and plants, or of the importance of diet to health.

Rockefeller used his power to influence Congress into declaring the AMA (American Medical Association) the only body with the right to grant medical school licenses in the United States. This suited Rockefeller perfectly – he then used the AMA to compel the Government to destroy the natural competition, which it did through regulating medical schools.

After the Flexner Report, the AMA only endorsed schools with a drug-based curriculum. It didn’t take long before non-allopathic schools fell by the wayside due to lack of funding and fear mongering/smear campaigns against natural remedies.

The result is a system which churns out doctors who are deficient in nutritional, herbal, and homeopathic knowledge and who disregard the idea that what you eat can actually heal or hurt you.

In 1960, Americans spent three times as much on food ($74 billion) as they did on health care ($27 billion). In 2012, Americans spent twice as much on health care ($2.9 trillion) as they did on food ($1.38 trillion). Over the past five decades, food costs have increased 18-fold; health care costs, 102-fold.1,2


As the editors of the Lancet remarked:
“The fact that Type 2 diabetes, a largely preventable disorder, has reached epidemic proportions is a public health humiliation. A strong, integrative, and imaginative response is required in which the limits of drug treatment and the opportunities of Civil Society are recognized.
8 >>>more

Nutrition Education in an Era of Global Obesity and Diabetes
Thinking Outside the Box

Eisenberg, David M. MD; Burgess, Jonathan D
Academic Medicine: July 2015 - Volume 90 - Issue 7 - p 854-860
Excerpt:

Our Current Situation
Although genetics are an important consideration in health, during the past half-century our genes have not measurably altered, and yet we are significantly more overweight, obese, and prone to lifestyle-related diseases. Today, one-third of the U.S. population is obese. Two-thirds are overweight. The medical costs of obesity in the United States are estimated to be as high as 20.6% of total health care costs.3 Additionally, three-quarters of health care dollars are spent on chronic lifestyle-related diseases.4 Diabetes alone is estimated to cost the United States $245 billion per year.5 In 1960, U.S. diabetes rates were 1% of the population, with the majority of cases diagnosed as type 1 diabetes.6 Today 9.3% of U.S. citizens are diabetic, with the overwhelming majority suffering from type 2 diabetes.7

Part 1
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Everything old is new again.
We've come a long way with "orthodox" medicine!
Medical professionals are 'discovering' natural remedies and coming up with marketing strategies that make 'magical' claims for their products.
For example:

Doctors in Scotland can now prescribe nature
Evan Fleischer, 15 Oct 2018, World Economic Forum,
"the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation."

  • Doctors in Shetland can now prescribe a walk in nature
  • the first program of its kind in the U.K.
  • The health benefits of engaging with nature are numerous.

Since October 5, doctors in Shetland, Scotland have been authorized to prescribe nature to their patients. It's thought to be the first program of its kind in the U.K., and seeks to reduce blood pressure, anxiety, and increase happiness for those with diabetes, a mental illness, stress, heart disease, and more.

There is a whole leaflet of nature prescription suggestions (pdf)that accompanies the program, filled with amusing, charming, sometimes seemingly off-kilter suggestions: in February, you can make a windsock from a hoop and material to "appreciate the speed of the wind"; in March, you can make beach art from natural materials or "borrow a dog and take it for a walk"; in April, you can "touch the sea" and "make a bug hotel"; in May, you can "bury your face in the grass"; in July, you can "pick two different kinds of grass and really look at them"; in August, you can summon a worm out of the ground without digging or using water; in September, you can help clean the beach and prepare a meal outdoors; in October, you can "appreciate a cloud"; you can "talk to a pony" in November, "feed the birds in your garden" in December, and do so much more. All on doctor's orders.

Shetland Islands
The evidence for the benefits of nature on mental and physical health are numerous. If you spend 90 minutes of your day outside in a wooded area, there will be a decrease of activity in the part of your brain typically associated with depression. Spending time in nature not only reduces blood pressure, anxiety, and increases happiness, but it reduces aggression, ADHD symptoms, improves pain control, the immune system, and—per a summary of research regarding the health benefits of nature—there's much more we don't know and are figuring out every day.

Have you read?

Part 2
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Traditions refined over several thousands of years.
- Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAM)
- Traditional and Complementary Medicine (T&CM)
- Traditional Systems of Medicine (TSMs )

Both Chinese and Indian medical traditions, originating over 3000 years ago, remain trusted methods.

“The five elements demonstrate how all aspects of human health, [like] diet, movement, and emotions, are interconnected with nature and our environment.” - Teresa Biggs, AP, DOM

China


"The Chinese word, or character, for medicine actually comes from the character for music."
- Gao Yuan, composer, conductor, and pianist.
Gao Yuan is steeped in both the Chinese classical and Western classical music traditions, giving him a rare sensibility very suitable for Shen Yun.

Interview excerpts:
....
Q: There is an old belief, now being revisited, that music has the power to heal. Where does this idea come from, and how does it apply to traditional Chinese music?
GY: Our ancestors believed that music had the power to harmonize a person’s soul in ways that medicine could not. In ancient China, one of music’s earliest purposes was for healing. The Chinese word, or character, for medicine actually comes from the character for music.

During the time of the Great Yellow Emperor (2698–2598 B.C.E.), people discovered the relationship between the pentatonic scale, the five elements, and the human body's five internal and five sensory organs. During Confucius's time, scholars used music’s calming properties to improve and strengthen people’s character and conduct.
Today, scientific research has also validated music’s therapeutic ability to lower blood pressure, reduce anxiety, enhance concentration, stabilize heart rate, and more. ... >>>more

Selected References

(1)
What is Chinese Medicine?
American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine (ACTCM)
Chinese medicine is a rich medical system that has existed in some form for more than 3000 years. ... Ill health is understood as stagnation, deficiency, or the improper movement of qì or xuè, and may result in an imbalance of yin and yáng. >>> ACTCM

(2)
The Five Elements:
What Science Has to Say About This Chinese Medicine Theory

- Beth Ann Mayer, Oct. 2021, Healthline
"...is this theory supported by science? Can the scientific approach and five element theory live side by side?
Here’s what experts and scientists say about the five elements, plus what they can and can’t teach you about your health.

What is the five element theory?
Five element theory, also referred to as Wu Xing or the five phases, has been a part of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for centuries.

According to a 2008 report (Trusted Source), an early mention can be found in the ancient text Huangdi Neijing, which likely dates back to 300 B.C. Even so, this theory still has many believers today.

“The five elements are used in pretty much every different style of TCM to some extent [to] diagnose and differentiate between different illnesses, dysfunctions, and people,” says Tiffany Cruikshank, licensed acupuncturist, experienced registered yoga teacher, and founder of Yoga Medicine.

The five elements are each associated with an aspect of nature, a connection that runs deep. >>>more

(3)
My Kidneys Are What?
- ChadD, 2009
"ChadD" is an American-based acupuncturist with schooling from the New England School of Acupuncture at MCPHS.
"... the kidney system in Chinese medicine goes far beyond the role of the physical kidneys as defined by western medicine. The kidney system provides the root of our overall energy and has a large influence over our development. This begins while we are still in the womb and continues to influence how well we age throughout our life."
>>> more

(4)
A brief history of acupuncture
– A. White, E. Ernst, 2004
"… During the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644), The Great Compendium of Acupuncture and Moxibustion was published, which forms the basis of modern acupuncture. In it are clear descriptions of the full set of 365 points that represent openings to the channels through which needles could be inserted to modify the flow of Qi energy [7]. It should be noted that knowledge of health and disease in China developed purely from observation of living subjects because dissection was forbidden and the subject of anatomy did not exist." >>> more

India
One of the oldest of the Traditional Systems of Medicine, originating in India around 3,000 years ago, Ayurveda medicine evolved with the ancient schools of Hindu Philosophical teachings known as Nyaya-Vaisheshika School of logic: Nyaya (literally “rule or method of reasoning”).

"In ancient India, the schools of Nyaya and Vaisheshika focused on logic and atomic approach to matter. In this paper, the idea of atomicity and other physical ideas given in Vaisheshika are reviewed in light of the central role the observer plays in Indian thought"R. H. Narayan (2007), Nyaya-Vaisheshika: The Indian Tradition of Physics (pdf)

Key concepts of India's ancient Ayurvedic medicine include universal interconnectedness (among people, their health, and the universe), the body’s constitution, and life forces, which are often compared to the biologic humors of the ancient Greek system. >>> more

“With the enormous knowledge of nature based medicine, the relationship of human body constitution and function to nature and the elements of the universe that act in coordination and affect the living beings…” >>> NCBI

From the archives:
A legendary 1903 tome from the Yoga masters, now in the Public Domain.

The Hindu-Yogi SCIENCE OF BREATH
by Yogi Ramacharaka
(Download pdf)
A wonderful historical document shared by a friend who said,
"VERY VERY USEFUL and hilarious in the way he talks about the ‘occidental’ view of things! It was written over 100 years ago and is so pertinent and useful, and I find if I breathe properly my body can go way beyond what I think it can do (eg riding 60 km after not having ridden much for 2 years! And people keep saying ‘how do you do it’!!)"

Excerpt:

"We may be pardoned if we express ourselves as pleased with our success in condensing so much Yogi lore into so few pages and by use of words and terms which may be understood by anyone. Our only fear is that its very simplicity may cause some to pass it by as unworthy of attention, while they pass on their way searching for something "deep", mysterious and non-understandable. However, the Western mind is eminently practical and we know that it is only a question of a short time before it will recognize the practicality of this work."

Egypt
Record have been found dating from 3000BC: "With the turn of the century, new archaeological discoveries...saw the academic study of Egyptian disease segregated into three distinct categories."
>>> more here and here


Europe
European healing traditions lost during the 13th to 18th century so-called "witch hunts" are being restored:
The Irish School of Herbal Medicine,
which was founded in 2000 in Portlaoise, County Laois, Ireland, ". . . focuses on the use of organic, plant based and living food programmes, herbal medicines, and environmental and lifestyle awareness. ... to facilitate the rebirth of western herbalism as it was practiced in a time when people lived more in harmony with the natural environment." >>> more

"Untilled Fields of Irish History"
On 29 August 1998, Peter Beresford Ellis presented a lecture to the annual Desmond Greaves Summer School on the history of Irish medical literature, "Untilled Fields of Irish History" which was published in the September 1999 edition of the legendary Irish journal An Phoblacht.

Excerpt:
Before the turn of the 19th Century, the Irish language contained the world's most extensive collection of medical literature in any one language. Just think about that fact. The great medieval Irish medical books are scattered in many repositories. These books survive from the 13th and 16th Centuries.

One would have thought that within the modern vogue for alternative medicine, these books would be examined by scholars and students producing their countless works on the ancient medicines of the world and medical histories. They are not.

There are many Irish medical works that are not even catalogued. From the time of Charlemagne, Irish medical men have spread through Europe. Niall O Clacán (c. 1501-1655) trained in medicine in the old Gaelic tradition and became not only physician to Louis XIII of France but Professor of Medicine at Toulouse and Bologna, writing some of the leading medical works of his day, such as Cursus Medicus. The University of Bologna, where he taught, holds several Irish manuscripts and even printed books from his personal library. ... Until we can rescue all of the material that has been neglected in these European repositories, covering over 1,000 years of Irish history, we will only have glimpses of Irish historical reality and never a total picture.

>>> more

Part 3
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BACH Flower Remedies

“Healing with the clean, pure, beautiful agents of nature is surely the one method of all which appeals to most of us.” Edward Bach

Between 1930 and 1936, English pathologist & bacteriologist Edward Bach (1886-1936) developed the Bach Flower Remedies.

Nora Weeks, in "The Medical Discoveries of Edward Bach" (1940), explained: Edward Bach closed down his London practice
"to seek and find herbs which would heal the sick, but from which no ill effects could be derived."

The story goes, that Bach placed his mortars and pestles in one suitcase and his shoes in another, and accidentally took the case with the shoes, only to discover that he needed the shoes because he walked the fields and forests before dawn every day collecting the first dew from wild flowers. While testing their impacts on himself, he experienced the potency of each flower and then developed his systematic dilutions of the "mother tincture' of each plant.

"We are all healers, and with love and sympathy in our natures we are also able to help anyone who really desires health. Seek for the outstanding mental conflict in the patient, give him the remedy that will assist him to overcome that particular fault, and all the encouragement and hope you can, and then the healing virtue within him will of itself do all the rest." – Edward Bach

In 1934, Bach described how Flower Remedies work:

"The action of these remedies is to raise our vibrations and open up our channels for the reception of the Spiritual Self; to flood our natures with the particular virtue we need, and wash from us the fault that is causing the harm. They are able, like beautiful music or any glorious uplifting thing which gives us inspiration, to raise our very natures, and bring us nearer to our souls and by that very act to bring us peace and relieve our sufferings. They cure, not by attacking the disease, but by flooding our bodies with the beautiful vibrations of our Higher Nature, in the presence of which, disease melts away as snow in the sunshine." – Edward Bach

"The Twelve Healers and Other Remedies" 1941 (Free PDF),
by Edward Bach, places the 38 remedies under the following 7 headings.
The group names are based on the general emotional characteristics Bach identified for each of the seven Bach nosodes. The Bach nosodes were a set of homeopathic remedies made from bacteria, which Bach worked on between 1919 and 1928.

1. For Fear
2. For Uncertainty
3. For Insufficient Interest in Present Circumstances
4. For Loneliness
5. For those Over-sensitive to Influences and Ideas
6. For Despondency or Despair
7. For Over-Care for welfare of others

In his Introduction, p. 12, Bach explained,

. . . As the Herbs heal our fears, our anxieties, our worries, our faults and our failings, it is these we must seek, and then the disease, no matter what it is, will leave us.

There is little more to say, for the understanding mind will know all this, and may there be sufficient of those with understanding minds, unhampered by the trend of science, to use these Gifts of God for the relief and the blessing of those around them.

Thus behind all disease lie our fears, out anxieties, our greed, our likes and dislikes. Let us seek these out and heal them, and with the healing of them will go the disease from which we suffer. …

In treating cases with these remedies, no notice is taken of the nature of disease. The individual is treated and as he becomes well the disease goes, having been cast off by the increase in health.

All know that the same disease may have different effects on different people: it is the effects that need treatment, because they guide to the real cause... (Edward Bach, 1941, p. 12)

See Nora Weeks, "The Medical Discoveries of Edward Bach" (1940),
CH. V & VI.

Visit The Bach Centre

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