Abstract
Herbal medicine is growing in popularity in the US and currently the number of visitsto Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) providers outnumbers the number of visits to primary care physicians (Bussmann 2010). Herbal medicine is one type of alternative medicine used by trained professionals, known as herbalists and healers. Herbalmedicine is effective when used properly because herbs contain organic chemicals withhealing properties used to treat illness and disease throughout the entire body. Even withproven results of effective healing, herbal remedies are not classified as prescription drugs,but as dietary substances (Bent et al. 2004). In this comparative study, I examinedherbalism as found in the alternative healing systems of Chinese medicine and Native American medicine. A local Chinese herbalist and a Native American healer wereinterviewed to analyze their healing beliefs in reference to diagnosing and treating patientswith herbal medicine. I also analyzed how the beliefs and practices tied to herbal medicinediffer from the culturally defined western model of healing. To deepen my analysis, Icompared the local alternative medicine systems of Chinese medicine and Native Americanmedicine to other alternative medicine traditions, specifically those of the Cherokee andLakota, while also looking at consistencies within Native American medicine. The theoreticalapproach of ethnomedicine was used to analyze the different approaches of herbal useamong the complementary and alternative medicine healing systems of Chinese medicineand Native American medicine. To better interpret, I also applied Du
mont’s (1980) theory of
holism to examine how these alternative systems of healing view the relationship betweenthe whole person and its parts, and how their systems of healing include treating the wholein order to treat the affected parts. My research is significant because it can directlyinfluence the way we view our own medical beliefs and practices by drawing our attention tothe possible alternatives of a more preventative, less invasive, and less costly system of healing through herbal medicines.