Is modern medicine better than the traditional medicine?

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This is one question raised by debates.juggle.com, about 67% of users agreed that modern medicine is better than the traditions. Though the results on-line have low reliability because it's the survey that didn't based on random selection, but you can still see generally a large amount of people agreed the better function of modern medicine. In the article posted on Midland Daily News, January 23rd, Kari Atkinson stated the short life of modern medicine which just occurred at least 70 years old to no more than 100 years old, but people usually think it's centuries old. He also mentioned that once you are given a drug you usually end up needing to take additional drugs because of side effects from the previous drug and proved his idea by an experiment on himself.
If we have to evaluate the accuracy of the article, you always analyze in two ways, reliability and validity. The former point about the history of modern medicine have low reliability cause you have to provide evidence like lab experiment or survey results to prove people do think in that way, but the latter one is more reliable than the prior claim cause it proved by self experience. Moreover, I think both claims are valid.
According to the article posted by Kyle Hill in Medicine, pseudo-science of Science Myths. He claimed that people in the past had no idea of illness or of chemistry or biochemistry. They believe every plants came to the earth with certain role. Traditional medicine is people trying to find a way of using the poisons in plants to our advantage. However, you cannot avoid the side effect of herbs either, cause there is no proper long-term check on the side effects.
People have faith on things they want to believe or already believe, so this question don't have the answer at the first place.

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I have always been in favor of modern medicine myself but when I read your post I began wondering why. I thought about your argument about both the benefits and negatives of modern and traditional medicine and thought in a way they are very similar. Both can either harm or help you depending on symptoms of the drug or herb.
I was wondering if traditional medicine could also be physical like chiropractic therapy or is this considered modern because of the new styles and knowledge in the field? Modern verses traditional medicine brings up more questions than answers. How else could modern medicine affect us in the future that we don’t know or the other way around?

I think that modern medicine is great, for it's what I am most familiar with and seems to be making improvements each year. I do wonder how people in the past survived without such medicine and if our medicine is really elongating lives by a noticeable difference compared to the past with only traditional medicine. I would hope so, considering each day our world is learning new things, and therefore creating more modern medicines that elongate our lives. Sometimes I do feel that people rely to heavily on modern medicine for all its supposed cures, (I do believe it cures a lot, but not all) when in reality they may not need medicine, but just need to stop over analyzing situations.

I think that modern medicine, although now in a completely different category, is just a progressive and more advanced version of tradition.
In mentioning herbal remedies, there is a naturalistic element to using those over medications- but what is found in herbs is what is extracted and put to use in most medications. Albeit, there are some man made medicines that one cannot find in nature, bit overall a lot of it overlaps.
I also found myself questioning my reliance upon modern medications as opposed to traditional remedies. However, one can easily see that today the average age of death is around 70 or 75; whereas in the past, before modern medicine, the average age of death was much lower- around 30 or 35.

I think modern medicine has progressed from traditional medicine. I think many medicines help people just by the thought of taking medicine to help people-both traditional and modern. You take a medicine, and you think, "I should feel better now." Then, people do feel better. That is what I think happens a lot of the time with pain reducers. Thinking that medicine always makes you feel better leads to people taking medicine even when they do not need to, and that can lead to harmful effects on your body. People need to slow down and think about whether they actually need to take that pain killer or if they can make it through without.
Whether people believe modern or traditional medicine is better, modern medicine has helped extend people's lives and should maybe be considered better in that way. Traditional medicine has helped push modern medicine in the right direction, and it, too, has also helped extend our lives.
Modern medicine is better, but read the possible side-effects and know what you might be getting yourself into.

Modern Medicine would not be what it is today if it weren't for the history of medicine and traditional medicine. As humans, we have learned over time how to best treat diseases and illnesses. Without the historical traditions in medicine and trial and error, we would not have been able to come the place we are at today. I think that traditional medicine in this aspect, is just as important or more important than modern medicine. It has taken 100 years to come to the place we are with the medical advances we have today. I agree that a lot of times, taking pills and other medications can be detrimental or addictive to a person's health. I think it is still important not to always rely on those drugs and try to use remedies that we know have worked for centuries to treat these pains such as headaches, and the common cold. Therefore, even though modern medicine is at it's best today, we should still remember our roots in traditional medicine as well.

Modern Medicine would not be what it is today if it weren't for the history of medicine and traditional medicine. As humans, we have learned over time how to best treat diseases and illnesses. Without the historical traditions in medicine and trial and error, we would not have been able to come the place we are at today. I think that traditional medicine in this aspect, is just as important or more important than modern medicine. It has taken 100 years to come to the place we are with the medical advances we have today. I agree that a lot of times, taking pills and other medications can be detrimental or addictive to a person's health. I think it is still important not to always rely on those drugs and try to use remedies that we know have worked for centuries to treat these pains such as headaches, and the common cold. Therefore, even though modern medicine is at it's best today, we should still remember our roots in traditional medicine as well.

Modern Medicine would not be what it is today if it weren't for the history of medicine and traditional medicine. As humans, we have learned over time how to best treat diseases and illnesses. Without the historical traditions in medicine and trial and error, we would not have been able to come the place we are at today. I think that traditional medicine in this aspect, is just as important or more important than modern medicine. It has taken 100 years to come to the place we are with the medical advances we have today. I agree that a lot of times, taking pills and other medications can be detrimental or addictive to a person's health. I think it is still important not to always rely on those drugs and try to use remedies that we know have worked for centuries to treat these pains such as headaches, and the common cold. Therefore, even though modern medicine is at it's best today, we should still remember our roots in traditional medicine as well.

Modern Medicine would not be what it is today if it weren't for the history of medicine and traditional medicine. As humans, we have learned over time how to best treat diseases and illnesses. Without the historical traditions in medicine and trial and error, we would not have been able to come the place we are at today. I think that traditional medicine in this aspect, is just as important or more important than modern medicine. It has taken 100 years to come to the place we are with the medical advances we have today. I agree that a lot of times, taking pills and other medications can be detrimental or addictive to a person's health. I think it is still important not to always rely on those drugs and try to use remedies that we know have worked for centuries to treat these pains such as headaches, and the common cold. Therefore, even though modern medicine is at it's best today, we should still remember our roots in traditional medicine as well.

I think that the focus in this blog can be related to the placebo effect. If people BELIEVE that something will work then often results show that. With the placebo effect, some participants are given a sugar pill or something similar to that. They don't know whether or not it is actual treatment or not but often they say that they feel better. This is a little different with modern vs traditional medicine. Participants are aware of what they are receiving and there could be other confounding variables. However, traditional medicine can be viewed as a placebo- patients BELIEVE that it will cure their disease and sometimes their symptoms do improve.

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This page contains a single entry by zhuxx604 published on February 7, 2012 6:21 PM.

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