For nearly 100 years, there has been a serious war going on between the proponents of allopathic (conventional) medicine and those who support natural or functional medicine. Functional medicine in the form of herbal, Ayurvedic, and Chinese medicine was dominant around the world for hundreds of years. Then, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the germ theory of disease began to take over, along with technological advances such as x-rays, the electron microscope,9 and the use of antibiotics.
