eCAM: Retaining an International Perspective

eCAM seemed to have arrived at the right time, 2004, when there was a growing need for populations to understand the biological basis of health and to take charge. Before the pharmaceutical industry dawned, humans did for themselves as best they could. Their innovations were limitless despite the sparse or even non-existent biotech instruments and MD’s prescriptions. Yet their potions, incantations and anecdotes did for them what modern university medical centers and the pharmaceuticals and supplements now do. Still the sages of ancient medicine remain but their age-old clout is meshing with more open views by Western practitioners. The meeting is still not yet at the halfway mark but lines are blurring. As science became increasingly intertwined with medicine, there emerged greater and more numerous discoveries that were tried and tested and offered as cures or perhaps ‘managers’ that would in many instances replace the shaman and certain folk remedies. Many of them were passed on generation after generation verbally and surely not published in evidence-based biomedical journals. Yet, they have not been entirely abandoned and now provide a vast array of seeds that are being strewn on to the most fertile soil rich with nutritious advancements in the form of highly sophisticated instruments and defined formulas designed for and that insure healthier and even longer lives. For older cultures, primarily in Asia, had no scientific biomedical journals in which to document evidence that is largely now dominated by the West. The emergence of the new biomedicine began to monopolize the world and in many instances replaced the prevailing healing powers and concoctions of ancient cultures. Knowing these constraints hopefully reasoned formulations and fast-forward, eCAM began with an international flourish and continues to this day. As a last tribute, I review a select group of pertinent papers that will be our last in volume 7 which has been supported most recently and entirely by OUP. Professors Seung-Hoon Choi and Il-Moo Chang of the College of Oriental Medicine, Kyung Hee University and Natural Products Research Institute have indeed done a credible international service. They have assisted the WHO to publish a dictionary-type book entitled ‘WHO International Standard Terminologies on Traditional Medicine in the Western Pacific Region’. It has a total of 3259 technical terms commonly used in traditional Chinese (TCM), Japanese (Kampo) and Vietnamese medicines. This comprehensive guide includes the English expression, the original Chinese character and a concise English definition. There are 3106 terms from basic theories, diagnostics, diseases and therapeutics, which include acupuncture and moxibustion and even the English wording of 153 titles which are considered the most important traditional medical classics published in these four countries. There is a prominent feature, the codification format that assigns numbers in hundred decimal units for each category. This ensures flexibility for adding more future terminologies. This volume is also useful in constructing a database for retrieving various published scientific articles. Using these standard terminologies is certainly advantageous to deliver accurate meanings and ultimately to avoid many expressions for a single term in different scientific manuscripts of Oriental medicine. Moving now closer to the Mediterranean and the Middle East, relatively new terminologies have emerged. Azaizeh et al remind us of several points. Complementary medicine is a formal method of health care in most eCAM 2010;7(4)397–398 doi:10.1093/ecam/neq078