Yale University. Since then, laughter has actually
been scientifically measured and shown to reduce
stress and pain by creating changes in certain
hormonal and immune system levels. In addi-
tion, increased antibody production in the upper
respiratory tract; an increase of lymphocytes,
cells that fight tumors and viruses; and the lung-
expanding, heart rate–increasing exercise of
laughing all serve to encourage people to heed
Proverbs 17:22: “A merry heart doeth good like a
medicine.”
Other respected figures in our society also con-
tribute admirably to a more global view of healing.
The Harvard-educated novelist and filmmaker
Michael Crichton, M.D., also a guest essayist in The
Power to Heal, wrote:
Accompanying the use of more refined technol-
ogy to prevent and treat illness, psychoimmunol-
ogy, the science that deals with the mind’s role in
helping the immune system to fight disease, will
become a vitally important clinical field in the
years to come—perhaps the most important med-
ical field in the twenty-first century, supplanting
our present emphasis on oncology and cardiol-
ogy. The encouragement of healthy thinking may
eventually become an integral aspect of treat-
ment for everything from allergies to liver trans-
plants. What all this means is that our present
concept of medicine will disappear. Pressed both
by patients and its own advancing technology,
medicine will change to focus from treatment to
enhancement, from repair to improvement, from
diminished sickness to increased performance.For all its seemingly newfound accolades and
anecdotal successes, what we call alternative med-
icine really began when humankind first recog-
nized the need to deal with and counteract
abnormalities and ailments that emerged in their
lives. The ancients developed their own medicines,
treatments that ultimately involved acknowledg-
ment of a mind-body connection, from whatever
nature provided.
In 1933, the editor-in-chief Bernarr McFadden
wrote in his foreword to the Encyclopedia of Health
(McFadden Book Company, Inc., New York):
“Only recently has it begun to dawn on the world
that health is something within the control of the
individual, and with it vitality of mind and heart
and all the personal attraction that goes with
them. People in general have given little attention
to health until it was destroyed. Men and women
waited until they were ill before they thought of
the proper care of their bodies. Then they called
in a doctor and there ended their responsibility, or
at least so they thought. The idea that they alone
might be responsible for their health or disease
and that responsibility for their recovery rested on
them and not on the doctor was foreign to their
thought. To them health and disease were largely
matters of chance. All this has passed, or is rapidly
passing. Health and disease are now known to be
subject to laws eternal and unchangeable, as are
all laws of Nature. Individual responsibility for
one’s own health or disease is coming to be gen-
erally recognized. With the generally growing
recognition of this responsibility has come an
increasing interest in ways and means of preserv-
ing and restoring health. People are interested in
learning how to care for their own health. They
are no longer content to place an almost unlim-
ited faith in potions and pills.”
It is somewhat mind-boggling to find literature
dating back so many years that pinpoints the
medical climate of today. Does it imply that we
have stagnated to a certain degree in our thinking
on the logic of integrative methods? Or does it
grant that perhaps this “New Age” simply means
we are at last opening our arms in a more unified,
consistent way to all the healing methods avail-
able on our planet since the beginning of time?
Alternative and complementary medicine need
not be “on the fringe” but rather a meritorious
component among a staggering array of modern
comforts and conveniences. Finally a visible force
in the mainstream, the field of alternative thera-
pies pours into American homes by way of televi-
sion and other broadcast media, newspapers,
books, and magazines, including Alternative Thera-
pies in Health and Medicine, a peer-reviewed journal
edited by Larry Dossey, M.D., and Alternative Med-
icine, a consumer publication of AlternativeMedi-
cine.com. Both magazines have impressive
advisory boards, an undeniable proclamation of
support for the universal mission—well-being,
however we choose to accomplish it. The Ameri-
can psychologist and philosopher William Jamesxxii The Encyclopedia of Complementary and Alternative Medicine