Steven C. Martin, M.D.

This essay briefly explores the relationship between science and alternative medicine over the past 150 years. It is of course impossible to do justice to the history of each individual alternative approach in the confines of a single essay. There are important distinctions among the alternative practitioners as regards their relationship to science. However, although alternative healers differed in many ways, by definition they have shared the characteristic of being different from orthodox medicine. Because a particular conception of science is at the core of orthodox medicine’s identity during this era, alternative practitioners needed to confront orthodox science and argue their position in the light of its assumptions. What follows then is an overview of science as defined by alternative practitioners, rather than a comprehensive …