From the beginning existed two schools of thought- Allopathic Medicine and Naturopathic Medicine.
“Allopathic Medicine” is the contemporary system in which medical doctors treat symptoms and diseases using drugs, radiation, or surgery. Allopathic Medicine has historically been composed of the use of archaic practices, including gruesome surgical procedures without the use of anesthesia, bloodletting, and the administration of toxic substances like arsenic and mercury. The Allopath’s perception of disease is that it is the task of the physician to aggressively drive disease from the body.
Contrarily, the field of Naturopathy is focused on the use of natural non-toxic substances, such as nutrient-dense foods and medicinal plants. When a Naturopath intervenes in the lives of his patients, it is to facilitate the body’s own ability to heal itself; he sees medical intervention as a means to restore the body’s innate healing mechanism.
Today, Naturopathy is an expansive field of medicine that includes, but is not limited to Chinese Medicine, Ayurvedic Medicine, Chiropractic Medicine, Herbal Medicine, Homeopathic Medicine, Orthomolecular Medicine, Energetic Medicine, Clinical Nutrition, Meditation, Prayer, Fasting, Detoxification, Emotional Counseling, Platelet Rich Plasma Infusions, Hydrotherapy, Sauna Therapy, Light Therapy, Oxidative Therapy, Probiotic Therapy, Enzyme Therapy, Colon Therapy, Physical Therapy, Massage Therapy, Stem Cell Therapy, and Bio-Identical Hormone Replacement Therapy.
On the other hand, the treatment offered by Allopathic Medicine is limited to synthetic pharmaceutical drugs, vaccines, allergy injections, fecal transplants, electro-convulsion therapy, chemotherapy, radiation, medical implants, and many other invasive surgical procedures.
When a Naturopathic Practitioner investigates illness, he or she does so by examining the underlying causative factors of a person’s symptoms. Once the root causes are discovered, they are addressed with the appropriate measure. Naturopathy is holistic because it views the entirety of the patient’s symptomatic picture rather than focusing on a particular detail. A person’s symptoms and test results are never interpreted in isolation, but instead are considered as one detail of the larger clinical picture.
When Allopathic Medicine is applied outside the realm of mechanical injuries and acute infections, the practitioner typically does not inquire beyond the surface of a person’s symptoms. When applied to treating chronic illness it is limited to a superficial approach that manages symptoms. A patient expresses a symptom and the doctor prescribes a synthetic drug or surgery to suppress that symptom. No further inquiry is made. The medicine is standardized, and rarely are patients ever prescribed a treatment that is uniquely custom tailored to their individual needs. The Allopath uses a cookie cutter approach or a “one size fits all” method for each and every patient that expresses the same symptom, regardless of its cause.
Allopathic Practitioners may use some of the same modus operandi as Naturopaths when it comes to diagnostic testing, however, their testing techniques and strategies are almost always less comprehensive and more compartmentalized in comparison. For example, many of the reference ranges used for detecting illness are only based on a range that indicates a diagnosable disease. These reference ranges do not indicate danger zones that precede major illnesses.
Due to the Allopath’s brief and shallow investigation into the health of his patients, a misdiagnosis can be a commonly made error. Because the Allopath does not delve deeper, a cure is also not a common achievement among their patients.. Even more unlikely is the prospect of their patients reaching an optimal state of health. Because the Allopath encourages drug use rather than behavioral change, the majority of patients of Allopathic Medicine generally spend their lives managing their illness while their health gradually deteriorates.
Before the advent of the industrial era, people naturally gravitated towards Naturopathic Medicine as a means to improve their health. In more modern times, Allopathic Medicine has coined itself the name “conventional medicine,” but this wasn’t always the case. Naturopathy, now labeled “alternative medicine,” was the conventional form of medicine used by the majority of the citizenry of the West. Allopathic Medicine has also been commonly referred to as “Western medicine.” This is a humorous misnomer since Hippocrates, the founding father of Western medicine, practiced Naturoapthy and not Allopathic Medicine. The irony is, the ways in which Allopathic Practitioners operate are in outright violation of the methods and fundamentals formulated by Hippocrates.
Despite the differences between Naturopathy and Allopathy, there is one notable commonality between the two schools of thought; and that lies in the fact that plants have always played a fundamental role in both Naturopathic Medicine and Allopathic Medicine. Where Allopathic Medicine differs is how this institution researches, utilizes, and administers plant-based medicines and their constituents.
Naturopathy is driven by disease prevention, the pursuit of optimal health, and patient cures. Meanwhile, Allopathy is driven by disease management, symptomatic suppression, and corporate profit. These differing approaches to illness change how plants are used between the two camps. Technically, no person or organization can patent a living organism. The pharmaceutical industry is only interested in selling what it can patent, and as a result, plants within their natural, wholesome state do not qualify. Instead, plant compounds are discovered and then tested for their structure and function, so that they can be isolated and synthesized into petrochemical drugs. Because these plant compounds are synthetic derivatives of their natural counterparts, and they are no longer complemented by the co-factors of the plant in which they reside, drugs in this unnatural state exert both therapeutic and harmful effects, otherwise known as “side effects.” Phytomedicines (phyto meaning plant) exert a multitude of therapeutic effects with fewer adverse effects, which is why Naturopaths insist on maintaining rather than distorting Mother Nature.