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History of Alternative Medicine Timeline

(3000 BCE – Present)

Alternative medicine encompasses healing practices that developed outside conventional Western medicine, including herbal remedies, acupuncture, Ayurveda, homeopathy, naturopathy, and chiropractic care. This timeline traces its evolution from ancient civilizations through the rise of scientific medicine to today's growing movement of complementary and integrative healthcare. Less

Go to: Timeline | Event List | Key Facts | Directory

Medical Education and Regulation

Flexner Report reshapes US medical education

1910

The Flexner Report of 1910 prompted sweeping reforms in American medical education, ensuring that established medical schools generally excluded alternative medicine as a teaching topic. Writing in 2002, Snyderman and Weil remarked that by the early twentieth century the Flexner model had helped to create the 20th-century academic health center, in which education, research, and practice were inseparable.

FDA begins regulating homeopathic products differently

1938

Since 1938, the FDA has regulated homeopathic products in several significantly different ways from other drugs. Homeopathic preparations, termed remedies, are extremely dilute, often far beyond the point where a single molecule of the original active ingredient is likely to remain, giving homeopathy a unique regulatory status within the pharmaceutical landscape.

CAPTA requires religious exemptions for faith healing

1974

In the United States, the 1974 Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA) required that for states to receive federal money, they had to grant religious exemptions to child neglect and abuse laws regarding religion-based healing practices, legally shielding certain alternative healing traditions from state intervention.

AMA abolishes its quackery committee

1975

In 1975, the American Medical Association, which had played the central role in fighting quackery in the United States, abolished its quackery committee and closed down its Department of Investigation. This pivotal shift removed a major institutional barrier to the spread of alternative medicine across America.

Most US medical schools offer some form of CAM training

2001

By 2001, some form of CAM training was being offered by at least 75 out of 125 medical schools in the US, marking a striking reversal of the Flexner-era exclusion of alternative medicine from mainstream medical curricula.

Majority of US medical schools teach alternative therapies

2002

In 2002, at least 60 percent of US medical schools devoted at least some class time to teaching alternative therapies, embedding CAM awareness into the training of a new generation of American physicians.

AAFP withdraws credits for functional medicine courses

2014

In 2014, the American Academy of Family Physicians withdrew course credits for functional medicine courses, having identified some of its treatments as harmful and dangerous. In 2018, it partly lifted the ban, but only to allow overview classes, not to teach its practice.

WHO Global Report standardizes definitions of traditional medicine

2019

The 2019 WHO Global Report on Traditional and Complementary Medicine defined traditional medicine as the sum total of knowledge, skill and practices based on the theories, beliefs and experiences indigenous to different cultures used in the maintenance of health, while stating that complementary and alternative medicine refers to a broad set of health care practices not fully integrated into the dominant health care system. When TM practices are used outside their original setting without scientific evidence, they are typically referred to as alternative medicine.

Research and Funding

Study highlights the placebo effect in medicine

1955

A 1955 study suggested that a substantial part of a medicine's impact was due to the placebo effect. This finding blurred the line between conventional treatment outcomes and those attributed to alternative therapies, fueling later debates about how much of any medicine's benefit comes from belief rather than pharmacology.

NIH establishes federal funding for alternative research

1992

Beginning in 1992, the NCCIH spent more than US$2.5 billion on research into alternative therapies, though this research did not demonstrate the efficacy of alternative treatments, making it one of the most consequential public investments in evaluating unconventional medicine.

CDC-funded project catalogs CAM evidence base

2003

In 2003, a project funded by the CDC identified 208 condition-treatment pairs, of which 58% had been studied by at least one randomized controlled trial (RCT), and 23% had been assessed with a meta-analysis, providing an unprecedented map of the scientific scrutiny applied to CAM practices.

IOM panel reports dramatic rise in CAM clinical trials

2005

According to a 2005 book by a US Institute of Medicine panel, the number of RCTs focused on CAM had risen dramatically. As of 2005, the Cochrane Library held 145 CAM-related Cochrane systematic reviews and 340 non-Cochrane systematic reviews, though the CAM review used the more developed 2004 Cochrane database while the conventional review used the initial 1998 database.

Washington Post reports push to shut down NCCAM

Mar 2009

In March 2009, a staff writer for The Washington Post reported that the impending national discussion about broadening access to health care, improving medical practice and saving money was giving a group of scientists an opening to propose shutting down the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, whose $2.5 billion in spending had found no effective alternative therapies.

Ernst becomes first professor of complementary medicine

2011

Edzard Ernst, the first university professor of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, characterized the evidence for many alternative techniques as weak, nonexistent, or negative and published his estimate in 2011 that about 7.4% were based on sound evidence, although he believed even that might be an overestimate.

Scientific Criticism

Medical journals respond to CAM growth in three phases

1965 - 1999

An analysis of trends in the criticism of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in five prestigious American medical journals during the period of reorganization within medicine (1965–1999) showed that the medical profession responded to the growth of CAM in three phases, with changes in the medical marketplace influencing the type of response in each phase.

Carl Sagan publishes The Demon-Haunted World

1996

Writers such as Carl Sagan, the noted astrophysicist, advocate of scientific skepticism and author of The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996), lambasted the lack of empirical evidence supporting the putative energy fields on which many alternative therapies are predicated.

Cassileth cites Nobel laureates' letter criticizing OAM research

1999

Writing in 1999 in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, Barrie R. Cassileth mentioned a 1997 letter to the United States Senate's Subcommittee on Public Health and Safety, signed by four Nobel Laureates and other prominent scientists, which deplored the lack of critical thinking and scientific rigor in OAM-supported research.

Four Australian children die after parents choose alternative care

2001 - 2003

Between 2001 and 2003, four children died in Australia because their parents chose ineffective naturopathic, homeopathic, or other alternative medicines and diets rather than conventional therapies, becoming a sobering case study cited worldwide in debates over regulating alternative medicine.

Lilienfeld warns of opportunity costs of unvalidated practices

2002

According to mental health journalist Scott Lilienfeld in 2002, unvalidated or scientifically unsupported mental health practices can lead individuals to forgo effective treatments, a phenomenon he referred to as opportunity cost, highlighting the hidden dangers of choosing unproven alternatives.

Richard Dawkins defines alternative medicine in A Devil's Chaplain

2003

English evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, in his 2003 book A Devil's Chaplain, defined alternative medicine as a set of practices that cannot be tested, refuse to be tested, or consistently fail tests, arguing that if a technique is demonstrated effective in properly performed trials then it ceases to be alternative and simply becomes medicine.

Public Adoption

Alternative therapy expenditures surge in America

1990 - 1997

The use of alternative medicine in the US increased dramatically, with a 50 percent increase in expenditures and a 25 percent increase in the use of alternative therapies between 1990 and 1997, signaling mainstream America's growing embrace of unconventional treatments.

IFM becomes registered non-profit promoting functional medicine

2001

IFM, which promotes functional medicine, became a registered non-profit in 2001, institutionalizing this approach to personalized healthcare and expanding its influence among practitioners seeking alternatives to conventional disease-centered models.

National survey measures most common CAM therapies

2002

According to a national survey conducted in 2002, 36 percent of U.S. adults used some form of alternative therapy. The most common CAM therapies used in the US in 2002 were prayer (45%), herbalism (19%), breathing meditation (12%), meditation (8%), chiropractic medicine (8%), yoga (5–6%), body work (5%), diet-based therapy (4%), progressive relaxation (3%), mega-vitamin therapy (3%) and visualization (2%).

US hospitals expand alternative therapy offerings

2008

In 2008, more than 37% of American hospitals offered alternative therapies, up from 27 percent in 2005 and 25% in 2004, showing how rapidly CAM services were being integrated into mainstream institutional healthcare settings.

Global survey shows majority acceptance of CAM by specialists

2022

A 15-year systematic review published in 2022 on the global acceptance and use of CAM among medical specialists found overall acceptance of CAM at 52% and overall use at 45%, confirming that alternative medicine had achieved near-majority integration into specialist practice worldwide despite persistent scientific criticism.

Key Facts

  1. Traditional Chinese Medicine, including acupuncture and herbal therapy, dates back over 2,500 years and is documented in classic texts such as the Huangdi Neijing (Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon).
  2. Ayurveda, originating in India around 3000 BCE, is one of the world's oldest medical systems and emphasizes balance among body, mind, and spirit.
  3. Homeopathy was developed by Samuel Hahnemann in Germany in the late 18th century (1796) based on the principle of 'like cures like.'
  4. Chiropractic medicine was founded by Daniel David Palmer in 1895 in the United States, focusing on spinal alignment for overall health.
  5. In recent decades, alternative medicine has increasingly been integrated with conventional care under terms like 'complementary' or 'integrative medicine,' with institutions such as the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (established 1998) funding research into these practices.

Source

This History of Alternative Medicine timeline was generated with the help of AI, using information found on the internet.

We work hard to keep these timelines accurate, but mistakes do get through. If you spot one, email us at [email protected] and we'll fix it for future visitors.

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