8 Lewisham Way
London SE14 6PP
UK
How should we think about what we now call ‘Alternative Medicine’? Andy Lewis will take us back to Roman Britain and perhaps ‘Britain’s First Quack’ where irregular medical practitioners sold their wares in Aqua Sulis (Bath) after the famous hot springs failed to work for people. Moving through time we shall see how the 17th Century beliefs of Royalty undermined the emerging medical professionals, and how 18th Century new religious movements developed the ideas of ‘natural health’ inspired by God’s Providence and a distrust in pharmacists and doctors and their profiteering ways. The 20th Century we shall see the interest in spiritualist ideas and the later New Age counterculture create the development of what we now call Alternative Medicine and its rejection of science and its adoption of the pretence of ancient wisdom. What do these beliefs give to people, what risks do they now pose, and how as a society should we engage with them?
Andy Lewis developed the Quackometer website that explores the pseudoscientific claims of alternative medicine websites and their impact on society.
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