The Second Generation Of Alternative Medical Systems.

Less successful challengers of allopathic medicine—Baunscheidtism, chronothermalism, physiomedicalism, and other medical isms—might also be mentioned to complete the antebellum generation of alternative systems. A second wave appeared in the later nineteenth century, beginning with osteopathy, a technique of musculoskeletal manipulation originated by Andrew Taylor Still in the 1870s. However, the first osteopathic school would not begin operation until 1892. The first school of chiropractic opened its doors in 1895, the same year that the manipulation method was discovered by Daniel David Palmer in Davenport, Iowa. During the last few years of the century, German emigre Benedict Lust blended the new manipulation procedures with hydropathic philosophy and treatments, herbal tradition, and other natural remedies to create naturopathy.

By then, nearly 20% of all practitioners of medicine were alternative physicians, up from the estimated 10% of the 1850s; in 1900 in America, there were approximately 110,000 allopaths, 10,000 homeopaths, 5000 eclectics, and another 5000 practitioners of other alternative systems.

Acupuncture has more recently been rediscovered; there was some experimentation with acupuncture in Europe and America in the nineteenth century. Reports of its efficacy by travelers to China in 1970 triggered an explosion of interest not only in acupuncture, but also in all aspects of traditional Chinese medicine and in Ayurveda, the ancient healing system of India.