These too are common in many cultures, but they are hardly scientific. Folk remedies on the other hand, are information rich remedies that have been passed down from generation to generation, in several cultures across the globe. While they may appear to be unscientific and even unhygienic, folk remedies are the result of intense research and development by our forefathers.
These folk remedies are still used, with great beneficial results, in parts of the world like China and India. And unlike other traditional folk remedies, they continue to remain very much a part and parcel of everyday life.
All of us are familiar with the allopathic form of medicine. Your doctor, who prescribes pills to rid you of your ills, is in all probability, an allopathic practitioner. A vast majority of the doctors in the world today are practitioners of allopathic medicine. In fact, a vast majority of individuals around the world know no other form of medicine than the allopathic way.
But some of you may prefer to be treated under the homoeopathic genre. In this case, the pills are not bitter. In fact, they are sugar coated globules, which are coated with the extract of the medicine and have been proven to work. People who are allergic to allopathic medicines, or who have known reactions to allopathic courses of medicine use the homoeopathic form of treatment.
Apart from these two major forms of treatment, there also exist other widely practiced forms of medicine like Unani, Ayurvedic and acupuncture. Although a vast majority of Americans may be unfamiliar with these forms of medicine, they are proven and effective folk remedies, which have become a part and parcel of medicine worldwide. Care must be taken to differentiate folk remedies from faith healing, shamanic healing and other unscientific forms of treatment.
Take India for instance. This is the land where ayurveda has been a tried, tested and accepted form of medicine for not just decades or centuries, but for millennia. The western world is only now discovering the benefits and riches of these folk remedies. Places like Kerala and the Himalayas in India offer visitors the chance to immerse themselves in this most ancient of folk remedies.
And those who take the plunge, come back and just healed, but refreshed as well. For like several other folk remedies, ayurveda too uses ingredients only from purely natural herbs and shrubs. No artificial or man made technologies or ingredients are used. While this has resulted in several people viewing such folk remedies as naturotherapy, it is a whole lot more. It not only repairs and refreshes the body. It also rejuvenates it, creating a natural balance that modern living has destroyed.
This is precisely how the Chinese folk remedies work. Based on the principle of yin and yang, these folk remedies attempt to bring the human body in balance with nature. Based on a balanced elemental nature of living things, these folk remedies believe that not being in harmony with nature causes ill health. They therefore attempt to regulate that balance and restore health.
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