BOSTON--Sitting at the back of a ballroom at the Copley Place Marriott on Sunday, Eugene F. Hummel talks about how he came to be a naturopathic medical doctor.

He was having trouble keeping food down and traditional doctors could not tell what was wrong. At the chiropractor's suggestion, he consulted a non-traditional practitioner who examined his eyes and made the correct diagnosis--a bone lodged in his digestive tract just above the stomach.

That experience played a part in making Hummel a believer that non-traditional practitioners often have the answers that Western biomedicine does not.

Participating in this week's Complementary & Integrative Medicine Conference sponsored by Harvard Medical School's (HMS) Department of Continuing Education, Hummel says he is looking to forge connections between traditional Western medicine and other approaches to health.

This conference is just one example of how HMS, considered a bastion of traditional Western biomedicine, has begun studying acupuncture, herb therapy, and other non-traditional therapies.

Through its six-month-old Division for Research and Education in Complementary and Integrative Medical Therapies, HMS has firmly inserted itself into the burgeoning sector studying treatments once considered quackery.

A Non-Traditional Conference

For the seventh year running, Associate Professor of Medicine David M. Eisenberg '76, who became interested in alternative medicine as a young doctor on a trip to China, has brought medical doctors and pharmacists together with massage therapists, acupuncturists and naturopaths like Hummel.

Eisenberg, who graduated from HMS, directs the school's newest division and is best known for his landmark surveys on the use of non-traditional therapies in the United States. His is also the director of this week's conference.

The conference, which ends today, has highlighted speakers who are leading the charge for the acceptance and use of non-traditional medicine by the medical establishment.

Besides prominent speakers, the conference included breakout sessions with demonstrations of non-traditional therapies.

Attracting over 500 participants, the four-day conference highlighted the growing acceptance of such therapies in the Western biomedical world.

The Dictates of the Dollar

The conference reveals a curious fusion between two seemingly exclusive worlds.

"Seven years ago, most clinicians in traditional care would have said complementary medicine is irrelevant," Eisenberg said in his opening remarks. But now, he said, physicians are bowing to market forces and the realization that some techniques that were considered useless may have real health benefits.

According to Dr. David S. Rosenthal '59, director of University Health Services and Medical Director of the Zakim Center for Integrative Medicine at the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, the market is a potent force driving research into alternative medicine.

"A lot of it comes from patients themselves," Rosenthal says. "Over the past two decades, there has been an increase in people using these methods for their wellbeing. The current estimate is that this is a multibillion dollar industry."