Review by Kathy Lyon (Click on stars for an explanation)

You may purchase this book on Amazon.com.

If you have considered incorporating Complimentary Alternative Veterinary Medicine (CAVM) into your practice, you need to read this book. The history and development of most of the alternative therapies (acupuncture, herbalism, holistic medicine, magnetic, and botanical therapies) are examined.

The authors have done a great deal of research in preparing this volume, collecting evidence of modalities used from the Neanderthal era to the present. (There are 37 pages of references.) There is a down-to-earth discussion of the actual successes of alternative medicine, and on the placebo effect.

All aspects of alternative medicines are examined (acupuncture; chiropractic; homeopathy; herbal and botanical therapies; electric, magnetic, and light therapies; energy medicine, etc.).

The authors discuss misrepresentation of research results, language distortion, and gullibility issues. The discussion goes to the ethics and societal obligations of CAVM, moral obligations to clients, the use of placebos, and the effects on both patient and owner.

"Hope" is one of the driving forces in alternative medicine. An entire chapter defines the ethics of hope, the cruelty of false hope, and the potential for direct harm.

I know that alternative therapies are a fast-growing aspect of veterinary medicine, but I hope that practitioners will read this book, and then combine their alternatives more tightly with traditional, evidence-based medicine.

Blackwell Science (2003).

Hard cover, 320 pages, 6 x 9 format.

ISBN: 9780813826165.