How does one tell a remedy from poison? Short answer – by conducting a controlled experiment. While the similes of scientific method can be observed in alternative medicine, its fundamentals rest on very shaky grounds, consisting part of anecdotal evidence, and part of wishful thinking. No matter how much you want to believe in the global conspiracy of big pharma, the benefits of a globalized healthcare effort (though not flawless) are undeniable. If we can agree on that, you can safely proceed to the rest of my blog, where I’m taking a look at the history and the present of the never-ending battle between formalized and complementary treatment. Having an academic background, I am obviously biased in favor of the former, but I’ll do my best to dispel widespread misconceptions about what works and what doesn’t in the field of maintaining our health and lives.