Traditional Medical Systems: Origin and Global Spread

Allopathy is the collective term applied to several ancient medical/dietary healing systems that evolved in India, the Eastern and Western Mediterranean basin, China, and the Americas. Allopathy holds that health represents balance while illness and disease are caused by imbalance. Diseases are classified as hot/cold, wet/dry, or a combination of both. Practitioners treat diseases using foods of the opposite category (e.g., malaria, a hot/wet disease expressed by fever and sweats would be treated allopathically using foods classified as cold and dry) in order to return the patient to central balance (neutrality) or health.

Allopathic concepts originated in ancient India perhaps more than 3500 years ago. Variants of allopathic systems are widely practiced in the 21st century and exist side by side with so-called germ theory and ...