Alternate medicine opens up options

By Ranjan K Baruah

Studying medicine and becoming health practitioner is a dream for many students. Most guardians in India still want their wards to be doctors if they get good mark after board exams. As there is demand for medical entrances and admission there has been increase in coaching institutes. But most of the students do not get admission in prestigious colleges or colleges which offer MBBS course. I will talk about an option that can be chosen by our students. Alternate medicine or healing, which is known as Naturopathy, is much in demand.
Naturopathy or naturopathic medicine is a form of alternate treatment that employs an array of pseudoscientific practices branded as “natural”, “non-invasive”, and as promoting “self-healing”. The ideology and the methods of naturopathy are based on vitalism and folk medicine, rather than evidence-based medicine.
It is a system of man building in harmony with the constructive principles of Nature on physical, mental, moral and spiritual planes of living. It has great health promotive, disease preventive and curative as well as restorative potential.
According to the manifesto of British Naturopathic Association, “Naturopathy is a system of treatment which recognises the existence of the vital curative force within the body.”
It, therefore, advocates aiding human system to remove the cause of disease i.e. toxins by expelling the unwanted and unused matters from human body for curing diseases.
The term “naturopathy” was created from “natura” (Latin root for birth) and “pathos” (the Greek root for suffering) to suggest “natural healing”.
Naturopathy is an art and science of healthy living and a drugless system of healing based on well founded philosophy. It has its own concept of health and disease and also principle of treatment. Naturopathy is a very old science.
We can find a number of references in the Vedas and other ancient texts. The morbid matter theory, concept of vital force and other concepts on which Naturopathy is based are already available in old texts. The revival of Naturopathy started in India by translation of Germany’s Louis Kuhne’s book New Science of Healing.
D Venkat Chelapati Sharma translated this book in Telgu in 1894. Shroti Kishan Swaroop of Bijnor translated this book into Hindi and Urdu in 1904. All this gave a wide propagation to this system. We will publish, including courses and institutes in India in our forthcoming edition.

Updates:

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(Ranjan K Baruah is a career mentor and can be reached at [email protected] or 8473943734 for any career related queries )