Orthodox medicine doesn?t give a damn to alternative healers. According to the followers of scientific medicine, there has to be a reasonable rationale behind a therapy, or else it?s bogus. Here?s how it works:

Cyclic disease

Many diseases (like allergies or arthritis) are self-limiting in that they normally have their ?ups and downs?. Sufferers seek a therapy on downturn, so that when an up arrives it?s claimed to be due to the therapy. Only rigorous study design can find out if the improvement is due to the therapy or a normal cyclic variation.

Self-limiting disease

There?s an old saying that a cold goes away in a week if you leave it alone, or in seven days if you treat it. Determining whether a therapy works or not can only be found if detailed records of successes and failures from a large number of patients administered with the treatment regimen is analysed.

Anecdotal evidence

?My friend?s mom visited several doctors, but this herbalogist cured her in a month.? Such anecdotes spread far and wide turning the alternative therapist into a much-wanted healer. Unorthodox healers are often found to advertise themselves through ?word-of-mouth? publicity.

Misdioagnoses

In an era of health obsession, many people imagine themselves to be suffering from diseases they do not have. When these folks receive this unwelcome news from their physicians they tend to gravitate to alternative healers who can always find some ?intractable disorder? they can readily treat.

Symptomatic relief

Short of proper care, pain alleviation and a little comfort may offer what sick people value most. Allegedly curative alternative therapies may soothe the painful symptoms while being unable to affect the disease iteself.

Mood improvement

Alternative therapists usually have much more time to spend with a patient than a general practitioner or a doctor in a hospital. No wonder prolonged talk sessions offer psychological strength and a feeling of improvment.