ABSTRACT
The critical attitudes have been applied to the craft of medicine is hardly surprising, for modern medicine–preventive, curative or palliative–impinges on the lives of everyone and this critical attitude is to be welcomed. In attempting to identify the basis, but in no sense novel, preoccupation with alternative kinds of therapy, we have sought to identify those facets which appear to lie at the root of a general criticism of governance which is directed to orthodox medicine as it is to the other scientific disciplines. The making good of this deficit, and the elimination of confusion and its associated loss of perspective, is a duty involving society as a whole, and of the medical profession in particular. One of the consequences of the changed nature of the relation of the doctor to the patient is that the pressures and the technical demands of modern medicine do not allow him the opportunities formerly devoted to counselling, sympathetic contact, and support.
