News that about one-third of all Americans seek out "alternative" medical care has motivated the local medical society to investigate the subject. As an expert in the area of alternative medical practices you have been invited by the society president to attend the monthly meeting and provide after-dinner "entertainment."   For your talk you plan to make some general comparisons about 8 different medical systems/practices [encountered in our class presentations and webpages].   You decide immediately that a good presentation will contain four parts--history, therapeutic approaches, training, and a bit of advice:

• You want to convey a brief comparative history of the 7 forms of healing, including when and how they originated in the US, and to what extent the situation in allopathic medicine (or changes in the practice of allopathic medicine) contributed to the origins of alternative practice.
  • [This is asking you to set the beginnings of the alternative practices in a larger context.  You do not want to supply your audience with just a list of names and dates because you know that is not what history is all about--you want them to understand why patients thought alternative practices had something to offer. For example, botanical healing (in the form of Thomsonianism), homeopathy, and hydropathy became prominent in the early 19th century responding both to heroic practices and the therapeutic despair of some allopathic physicians.)

You want to discuss (and compare) the approach(es) to disease and health taken by the alternative systems--do they seem to have anything in common, and what are the most important points of difference--and  you want to provide comparisons with the approach of regular medicine. [You might do this in historical context  (combined with the first part of your talk) or use a more contemporary perspective.]

 

You want to compare practitioners and training methods and discuss how training differs from allopathic medicine today.

 

And, finally, you want to conclude with a personal statement giving your opinion about how the local medical society should regard the contemporary uses of alternative practices.  [You might  call for regulation? incorporation? dismissal? prosecution?  You might speculate on why so many people see alternative practice as a valuable part of healing and disease prevention.]
 

WRITE THE TALK.

Note that you, the speaker, have not been assigned an opinion about alternative medicine. You may present the alternative practices critically or positively, but you must be accurate in your presentation.

A suggestion:  You will find this essay easier to write if you do not try to tell the story of each practice separately.  Make categories and generalizations about the alternative systems--what do they share in common? Point out exceptions to your categories when necessary, but look for the "big picture."

Feel free to email other groups IF the information you believe you need to complete this essay was not presented in class or on the webpage. They may be able to help.

Format: NO MORE THAN 8 PAGES

Title at top of talk.

NAME on a separate title page only.

YOUR GRADE: DEPENDS ON CONTENT AND PRESENTATION.

PROOFREAD CAREFULLY!!

Please DO NOT submit this assignment electronically.