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Holistic Medicine


Holistic medicine, also known as alternative or complementary medicine, comprises a number of disciplines including acupuncture, chiropractic, herbal medicine, homeopathy, and massage. None of the information on these sites is meant to replace advice from a qualified health practitioner. As with any medical treatments, don't proceed without first consulting your personal physician. The do-it-yourself nature of the Web, however, mirrors the personalized spirit of holistic medicine.

The Best

Acupuncture is a comprehensive site that covers traditional Chinese medical practices such as herbology and Qi Gong (the underlying meditation practice of Qi or chi energy that's behind Kung Fu and Tai Chi). The site explains acupuncture from ground up and offers special information on acupuncture for women and people with substance-abuse problems. The herbology section is useful for beginners, but also offers articles on various herbs and herb combinations, with pharmacological details. You'll also find detailed instructions for performing Qi Gong and extensive listings of acupuncture practitioners all over the world. This site has it all: research, news, and articles for folks who are simply interested and for serious practitioners. Even if you're skeptical, you might be swayed by the testimonials from people who've found that traditional Chinese medicine has helped them through a variety of diseases and conditions. You can even find information here on where to get training so that you, too, can become a practitioner. The judicious use of graphics--Chinese characters for each of the sections, with an explanation of the origin of the character--is commendable and nice for folks with slow connections.

The Alternative Medicine Homepage is a great jump-station to other sites including mailing lists, newsgroups, and databases. It also includes information on the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM), a branch of the National Institute of Health established in 1992 to evaluate different forms of alternative medicine. You'll find instructions for fax retrieval of information about the OAM. This is probably the best place to start if you'd like to explore holistic medicine but don't know exactly what you're looking for.

The Rest

Herbal Hall is mostly an enormous archive of downloadable documents, but each month the featured herb is converted into a graphical Web document. Mainly of interest to professional herbalists, Herbal Hall includes information on growing, tending, harvesting, processing, and using a number of herbs. It also has links to many other herbology-related sites.


The Homeopathy Home Page is a centralized list of jump-off points. It aims to include a link to every resource related to homeopathic medicine, but it still has a way to go. The listing of commercial sites is skimpy, and the Internet resources listing does not take advantage of embedded links, which means you have to retype the listed links into your browser's URL line. This site will lead you to some interesting places, though, for both Mac and PC software that you can use for diagnosis.

The Aesclepian Chronicles is an electronic magazine originating in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina, sponsored by the Synergistic Medicine Center (SMC). The writing is a bit uneven, but it's a true magazine with book reviews, letters to the editor, and research articles. Unlike some other sites, the promotional content is not too heavy-handed. The articles, only some of which are written by SMC staff, cover issues such as the health benefits of expressing appreciation in the workplace and personal accounts of caring for a patient with Lou Gehrig's disease. As a magazine, it holds up.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Qi Gong is on Diti's QiGong Page : the basics, scientific papers, historical sources, and links to related sites.

The Kombucha Home Page is a complete rundown on Kombucha and Kombucha-related Internet resources. Kombucha is a fermented tea made from a fungus, highly praised in the Far East for its health-giving properties. This page tells you what Kombucha will do for you, how to start a culture and prepare the tea, and which books and videos will give you further information.

The Chiropractic Page , a jumble of links, is broad but shallow. Annoying use of the Netscape extension that makes text flash detracts from the content, but there is a lot to check out here if you're interested in chiropractic. This place has it all: research studies, links to software, information on journals. Hunting through all this will take a while, though, because the data isn't presented in a hierarchical manner. Down at the bottom of this lengthy page you'll find links to things like the Winsock Applications page, which frankly is a little more information than I need from a chiropractic page.

Dr. Bower's Complementary Medicine Home Page covers many topics, but the information is a mixed bag; some archived Usenet postings, some links to other sites. Searching its list of practitioners by state yields only those at the Dogwood Institute in Virginia, which, not coincidentally, sponsors this site. You can find better jump-off points elsewhere.

The Holistic Internet Community gives you essays on a variety of topics including Reiki, acupuncture, and Feng Shui. Its alphabetical list of practitioners covers mainly Massachusetts. At the time we reviewed it, it was heavily under construction.

Good Medicine offers a peek at what you can find in the hard copy version of what is now Good Medicine Journal, formerly Good Medicine Magazine. The back issues here from 1994 contain articles on herbology, massage, and aromatherapy, but it's mostly light reading for your virtual bathroom.

The topics examined by Alternative Care are better covered elsewhere, but because it's authored by a chiropractic student, it's a good source of information on schools, financial aid, and other links of interest to students.

The Montgomery Method is an ad for Kate Montgomery's books and balms, but it might be of particular interest to computer users since it covers Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The Montgomery Method is a seven-step system of massage and corrective exercises that are a possible alternative to surgery.

Unlike Herbal Hall, Herb'n Outfitters is an unabashedly commercial site: It wants to sell you herbs on-line. There's not much to it other than a pretty unspectacular "Land of Links" and a price listing with a couple of sentences each on what a particular herb will do for you. Use it only if you know what you're doing and you think you're getting a bargain.

Traditional Natural Life has a lot to say about citizens rights and your natural 120-year life span, but the basic idea is that you need to subscribe to the Natural News Wire Digest. Incessant, weird use of bolding and italics makes this look like an Internet chain letter.

Natural Therapies is an ordering site with minimal information on celery seed extracts. Yawn.

by Richard Butner

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Internet Life Vol.1 No.1 Winter 1995