Alternate health is the name given to the practice of curing that does not fall in the category of conventional medicine. It is also attacked by the complementary medicine of today's world as being unable to show consistency to be efficient. It's development, unlike complementary medicine, does not includes a scientific approach but it is based on historical and cultural grounds. Alternate medicine started to be known as "alternate" when complementary medicine became very popular because it was very productive and effective on diseases such as malaria, typhoid and smallpox. Before that alternate medicine was the "only" kind of medicine available.

Alternate health encompasses a huge variety of treatments, cures and procedures from different parts of the world. Some common types of this particular medicine are ayurveda, meditation, yoga, hypnosis, homeopathy, acupuncture, traditional Chinese medicine, aromatherapy, herbalism, chiropractic, naturopathy etc. Techniques like meditation and yoga try to strengthen a human being from the inside by focusing on desired objective and by controlling body's desires. Techniques such as ayurveda, traditional Chinese medicine and herbalism use naturally occurring ingredients in their medicine. These include herbs, spices, plant extracts, different minerals and animal parts. Other procedures such as acupuncture and chiropractic rely on physical treatment.

With the growing side-effects, expensiveness and the general bad opinion of complementary medicine, alternate medicine has seen an increase in its usage in the past some time. The growth of alternate medicine has however alerted the authorities because such practices do not come under laws that previously monitored complementary medicine and they can have bad consequences for their recipients. An advancement that has taken place is the grouping of complementary and alternate medicine under one umbrella which has come to be known as CAM or complementary and alternate medicine. This grouping has been done so that research can be taken place on both side of the medicine world over new diseases and laws can be implemented which consider both types of medicines. This grouping has however been opposed by fundamentalists in both fields who think that these two perspectives can only work If they are kept separate.

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