ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses primarily on the growth and development of alternative medicine in Britain since the mid-nineteenth century. It starts by charting the meaning of the concept of alternative medicine in this country, which is contrasted with that of medical orthodoxy. The notion of medical orthodoxy became increasingly associated with the ideology of 'science' as it developed through the nineteenth into the twentieth century. This link with 'science' can be seen as an attempt to legitimate the biomedical approach on which orthodoxy came to be based in a situation of intense occupational interest-based rivalry between those lying within the newly established ranks of the medical profession and outsiders who challenged their position. The corollary of this is that alternative medicine was castigated for being 'unscientific' in its approach to health and suffering - a critique of unorthodox therapies that continues to be echoed in contemporary Britain by the medical establishment, comprised of leading figures in the Royal Colleges and the British Medical Association.
