It can be difficult to remember or even recognize but what, in westernized cultires, we call “Medicine” is not the only medicine but merely one way of practising medicine that is more properly called “allopathic medicine”.
Allopathic Medicine might dress itself up in a cloak of invincible science, look down upon and call all other practices “alternative’ but is actually both a newcomer and a minority.
“Medicines are everywhere.”
Choose and use your medicine wisely.
Do you pop a pill when you’re feeling ill?
If you do, you’re in the minority.
In fact, 80% of the world depends on traditional methods and medicinal plants to treat illness.In North America, First Nations healers use almost 3,000 plants.
Detailed knowledge of plants is part of their tradition. Its also essential.
To use plants safely and effectively, you need to know when to harvest them, which parts to use and how to prepare and administer them.
…and from another panel in the same exhibit…
Food is the first line of defence in traditional Chinese medicine.
Classified as yin and yang properties, food helps balance qi (“chee”)- your vital life force.
For example., a “warm” yang food such as barbecued chicken wings balances excess yin by stimulating circulation and heating the body. “Cool” yin foods such as raw carrots, celery and lettuce balance excess yang by helping secrete fluids and cooling the body,
What if food fails to prevent illness?.
The next step is herbal medicine – often as teas or broths.
These examples are both from the exhibition at the Toronto Science Centre – “A Question of Truth” which asks questions like “is science objective” and illustrates that many of the things we regard as certainties or the one truth, are merely one interpretation, and often a minority one at that.
Science does not give us one objective truth but is a process of inquiring into, describing and interpreting our world and of how culture shapes that process we call science.
As one of the greatest of all scientists recognized:
“there are no data – all is interpretation”
-Albert Einstein
So when we talk about scientific “truth its worth asking “which one?” or “in which culture?” .
“Join Dr. Hooley McLaughlin, Chief Science Officer at the Ontario Science Centre, as he tours the “A Question of Truth” exhibit, which highlights the role of culture, race, gender and social bias in scientific research.”
http://www.ontariosciencecentre.ca/Tour/Question-of-Truth/