ABSTRACT
Scientific medicine is the generic term for a specific mode of healing characterized by the assumption that all disease is materially generated by specific etiological agents such as bacteria, viruses, parasites, genetic malformations, or internal chemical imbalances. This chapter examines the historical development of scientific medicine and attempts to delineate some of the problems with this mode of healing that have led to a search for alternatives. Scientific medicine emerged in the late nineteenth century primarily from French and German laboratories. Beginning in Europe in the 1850s and in the US a decade later, was the sanitary revolution that led to environmental reforms affecting drinking water, sewerage, housing and work conditions. American medicine at the turn of the century was dominated by practitioners of allopathic medicine.
