The term “allopathy” was a derogatory term used by homeopaths for practitioners of what was then called “heroic medicine”. And what was this “heroic medicine”? It was based on the belief that diseases were caused by an imbalance of the four “humours” (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile). The goal of “Heroic medicine” was to treat disease symptoms by correcting these imbalances. There was no need to empirically prove that the measures being taken in this were actually effective. It was purely observational.

Does the description of “heroic medicine” not sound a lot like, er, Ayurveda? Ayurveda believes that diseases are caused by imbalances in the three “doshas”, namely “vaata”, “pitta” and “kapha” and that diseases can be cured by correcting these imbalances. People are classified into respective “prakritis” based on the proportions of the three doshas. The universe is built out of the five “elements” of air, water, earth, fire and ether (space), and so are the doshas.

It is extremely difficult to prove or disprove that any “humours” or “doshas” exist. What is indisputable is that personality types exist and different people have different metabolism rates. Some people are “fast metabolisers”, others are “slow metabolisers”. We all know that some people tend to have predominantly respiratory problems, others tend to have gastrointestinal issues and so on. In an era when there was no electron microscope, no knowledge of enzymes, cellular structure, DNA or RNA, the concept of imbalance of “humours” or “doshas” resulting in disease made good sense. It is interesting that with the relatively easy availability of new sophisticated tools, some modern Ayurvedic researchers are trying to investigate whether there is a correlation of different personality types and individual genetic variations with the prakriti concept.

The founder of homeopathy, Joseph Hannehmann, was actually using the term “allopathy” for practitioners of.. traditional medicine. At that point in time, medicine was not what it is today. In the name of traditional medicine, scamsters were selling useless, ineffective products to the public at large. The history of the phrase “snake oil salesman” for such scamsters is worth reading.

The term “allopathy” has repeatedly been objected to by modern day practitioners. Due to the bitter experience of frauds playing with the health of people, the governments of the day stepped in and mandated “evidence-based medicine”. That is, any treatment being proposed to be offered to patients must be first proven to be effective in trials – phase 1 trial is in vitro or lab animal study, phase 2 is limited human trials and phase 3 is large scale randomised controlled double blinded human trials. Double blinding means that neither the patient nor the researcher knows whether the drug being given to the volunteer contains drug or placebo, thus eliminating bias and suggestion factors almost completely. Due to this rigorous method, 90% of drugs developed by pharmaceutical companies never make it to the market.

As technology progressed over the last hundred odd years, researchers and doctors started gaining unprecedented insights into the deep secrets of the human body. The various metabolic pathways used for creating and storing energy and nutrients. The microscopic and molecular structure of cells and tissues and the specific functions of each organ in the body. The mechanisms through which these functions are executed. The narrow range of parameters in which the body maintains its health – we call it “homeostasis”. Don’t bother drinking that expensive “alkaline water”. It does not work, because the body maintains a strict pH range of 7.4 +/-0.5 for its well-being and actively resists any attempts at interference with this. It will certainly be instantly neutralised by the strong hydrochloric acid of the stomach, much before it can go anywhere.

The course of recorded history was repeatedly changed by untimely deaths. Bajirao Peshwa and Shivaji Maharaj succumbed to undiagnosed fever. While serving their respective sentence at Cellular Jail, Sachindranath Sanyal and Babarao Savarkar were deliberately housed with prisoners suffering from advanced tuberculosis, due to which they contracted the dreaded disease and eventually succumbed to it. That’s where “modern medicine” comes in. As the knowledge of the human body exploded, more and more avenues to treat diseases also started opening up. With the discovery of germs and their causation of diseases, methods to kill those germs also started developing. In the pre antibiotic era, a small wound could rapidly cause death due to infection. Appendicitis was a fatal condition. Antibiotics are the single biggest life saver group of drugs in the history of mankind. They have likely saved billions of lives over the past century. And we are only beginning here.

The mortality of heart attacks and strokes was sky high in the era when modern drugs were not available. The morbidity burden was even higher. Complete reversal of heart attacks and strokes is now possible and commonly available across the world – due to modern medicine. People with severe systemic diseases are living longer and healthier than ever before. Until a few decades ago, a cancer diagnosis was a harbinger of death. With modern methods of early diagnosis, state of art treatment methods and of course modern medicines like chemotherapy, immunotherapy, hormonal therapy etc, cures of various types of cancer have become a reality, and even commonplace.

Just 75 years back, 22.5% of kids didn’t make it past the age of five. Today, the number is down to around 4.3%. In some countries it is as low as 0.5%. Billions of little children have been cured of once lethal diseases – thanks to modern medicines and universal childhood immunisations.

I hope by now you would have realised that modern medicine does cure. More people are being cured reliably, accurately and safely in the modern era than at any point in history. And these cures are being effected on the back of rapid developments in science, better knowledge and understanding of the body, state of art diagnostic tools and targeted treatments, leading to more predictable and better outcomes. The average life expectancy has shot up from under 40 years in the 19th century to well over 70 years – thanks in large part to modern medicine.

So where does this misunderstanding of “allopathy does not cure but only treats symptoms” come from? This is a subject worth brooding over. The answers are complex.

Now that survival from dangerous diseases has become commonplace, people have started looking for ways not to fall ill in the first place. This is termed “wellness” or “preventive medicine”. There are certain disorders, such as bronchial asthma and inflammatory bowel disease, that are not outright curable but can be very well managed on long term medicines. A large percentage of the population now suffers from so-called “lifestyle disorders” such as diabetes mellitus and hypertension. The treatment for these disorders is primarily a change in lifestyle, and unfortunately most patients are not able to do it. As a result, they remain on medicines pretty much for life. Due to these factors, people naturally tend to think the medicines are only controlling the disease and not curing it. And they are right. The treatment for lifestyle disorders cannot be medicines alone.

This is where traditional medicine comes right back into the picture. It offers a more holistic and integrated approach to good health, such as eating a nutritious and balanced diet, stress management, regular exercise along with traditional medicines and food supplements. Very few would disagree that these measures help people cope with their disorders and often alleviate their symptoms. Other factors driving patients towards alternatives to mainstream medicine include but are not limited to:

– Commercialisation and corporatisation of healthcare

– Influence of pharma lobbies and insurance companies in health policy making

– Questions raised on the quality of medical research being used to drive decision making in mainstream medicine, as the results of one trial can often contradict those of earlier trials

– Breakdown of patient-doctor relationship into a consumer-provider transaction and resultant “defensive medicine” which raises cost of treatment

– Nostalgia factor: “our ancestors knew better”.

These are genuine concerns. Numerous dubious decisions by some governments during the covid pandemic, especially the USA with its draconian vaccine mandates, flip flops on treatment protocols and visible influence by pharmacy giants, have also created widespread disaffection in a section of people. The credibility of modern medicine itself is at stake and this raises the bar for us to show that we are worthy of retaining our patients’ trust.

Unfortunately, there are many charlatans and frauds eager to jump onto this bandwagon and fan the disaffection even more, so that they can position and sell their own products as the better alternative. Armed with large social media teams and often backed by rich millionaires, these modern day snake oil salesmen relentlessly drive their narrative to discredit the whole of modern medicine about which they know next to nothing. They sell “health” via their lifestyle products and food supplements. Quite convenient, because food supplements do not qualify as medicine and hence don’t require any proof of efficacy. There is a separate term for the products: nutraceuticals. Some of them are now graduating to making claims of curing diseases with their supplements, and actively attacking modern medicine as fraudulent. They spread the myth that allopathic medicines don’t cure the disease but only suppress the symptoms and have many side effects, while their “medicines”, that are legally only food supplements, are 100% effective in “curing diseases from the root” and that too without any side effects. This is a typical charlatan’s claim. And the worrying thing is that some of them are being taken seriously without the burden of proof. This is why many mainstream medicine practitioners are warning against trusting such “pseudoscientific” claims.

Yoga, meditation, pranayama and simple treatments for common conditions based on traditional knowledge must have a role in everyone’s life. But anyone making treatment cure claims must provide evidence of efficacy first via clinical trials, take necessary legal approvals, standardise the treatment protocols and enlist the potential side effects / adverse effects of the treatment. This is true even for traditional medicine. It is not advisable to blindly trust a treatment only because a learned Indian doctor wrote about it in his treatise a few thousand years ago. So much has changed since that time. Medical treatises are not infallible words of God. Phase 1 trials can be exempted but phase 2 and 3 trials need to be done.

And you would be pleased to know that there are thousands of phase 2 and 3 clinical trials in progress across the country to test efficacy of Ayurvedic medicines in various medical conditions. Most of them are being funded by the AYUSH ministry as the absence of patent possibility makes it unattractive for local Ayurvedic pharma companies to conduct R&D. I recommend reading this detailed article by me on the subject, which gives more insights on policy changes needed to integrate Ayurveda into mainstream medicine.

In summary, modern medicine does cure. Allopathy is a misnomer. Traditional knowledge systems do have a role in mainstream medicine. And medical malpractice is not an exclusive preserve of mainstream medicine, there are plenty of charlatans in traditional medicine too. As much as one needs to be wary of unproven mainstream medicine treatments, one needs to be equally skeptical of cures promised by alternativists.