A hundred years ago many healing ways were used in the US & Europe: chiropractors, naturopathy, homeopathy, osteopathy, herbal medicines, diet etc. It is only recently that "medicine" came to refer almost exclusively to surgery and drugs as we know it today...

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From the 1700s, what we now recognise as Western Medicine was known as Heroic Medicine and included unpleasant and deadly practices such as blood-letting, purging, leeching, blistering, mercury and lead therapy. It was generally frowned upon by the public

People generally avoided Heroic Medicine, with the majority preferring natural methods towards healing. It was only after oil merchant John D. Rockefeller Sr decided to use petroleum products to make substances that could affect the body and nervous system, that medicine changed

Yes, Rockefeller was a petroleum products dealer who now saw the field of medicine as an opportunity to expand his petrochemicals empire by looking for ways to introduce these into the human body and nervous system as a new "market" for his chemicals business

For millennia, healers worked with herbs and diet, and charged little or nothing for their services. It was the combination of Heroic Medicine and later the introduction of of petrochemicals that lead to medicine now being viewed as a job, with a premium price placed on it

Rockefeller's motivation in entering the field of medicine was motivated not by a wish to save lives or to advance the field of healing, it was instead, in his own words the wish to "make money and still more money". How his chemicals would affect people was a secondary concern

To establish himself, a crude oil peddler and his chemicals in the field of medicine, Rockefeller embarked on an unprecedented “philanthropic mission” - donating heavily via his foundation - to the American Medical Association, to gain considerable influence in the health sector

The intention was to eliminate all other healing methods which Rockefeller viewed as "competitors". These included herbal therapies, Eastern medicine, homeopathy etc. and ensuring that chemicals - drugs - became the standard mainstream form of treatment going forward

On John D. Rockefeller's philanthropic activities as inculcated in him by his advisor Frederick T. Gates, in the book "Rockefeller Medicine Men", Richard E Brown writes:

"Gates embraced scientific medicine as a force that would: (1) help unify and integrate the emerging industrial society with technical values and culture, and (2) legitimise capitalism by diverting attention from structural and other environmental causes of disease

Yes, the main aim of Rockefeller's philanthropy was never to advance the field of healing, but to herd the global population into a then emerging "industrial society", while maximising profits at every turn

in 1910, Rockefeller & Andrew Carnegie hired a teacher to write a report which was submitted to the government saying there were too many doctors and medical schools in the US and that all natural healing methods which had existed for hundreds of years were unscientific quackery

So, by the 1930s, medicine was under the total control of the Rockefeller funded American Medical Association that controlled entry into the field through licensing and accreditation of medical schools and teaching hospitals

Rockefeller and Carnegie submitted that "none but men and women who have an interest in scientific medicine" should be licensed to join any medical society

“The technical expertise associated with scientific medicine helps to mystify the role and work of the physician more effectively…thereby support[ing] the claims of the profession for a monopoly of control over all healing methods" - Richard E Brown

Carnegie and Rockefeller used their foundations to offer huge grants to medical schools provided that only a Western curriculum was taught. Herbs, plants and the importance of diet were to be removed from curricula. Future doctors were to only learn about chemical drugs

Now any small increase in the effectiveness of new medicine was exaggerated in propaganda by the medical profession and the media. Magazines and newspapers joined medical journals in praising the "accomplishments" and pontificating on the future success of medical science

Articles ridiculing "Popular Medical Fallacies" and praising the "Triumphs of Modern Medicine" and the "War Against Disease". Western Medicine was portrayed as an "exact science" and the physician as an inquiring and skeptical scientist who avoids "hasty jumping at conclusions"

Western [allopathic] medicine was now the only truly valid medicine. The only one not founded on "dogma but on
verifiable truths". Since it was the only valid medicine, the Rockefellers demanded that the State give it a monopoly of practice

Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller were the two richest people in the world at the time, they had no medical credentials, yet this did not stop them from the pursuit of more money and power through the field of medicine, with no regard to the damage on public health

The fact is Western medicine became mainstream, not because it was the best or most advanced form of healing available, but because the health system was manipulated and steered in that direction through Grand Philanthropy by the Rockerfeller and Carnegie foundations

Source: https://www.biostarus.com/blogs/formulators-corner/down-the-rabbit-hole-the-rise-of-western-medicine-in-the-us