Alternative Medicine

The science-based approach to illness is essentially that of treating the root cause of the disease itself. Critics of this approach worry that too little attention is given to possible side-effects of potent medicines.

Holistic medical practitioners, typified by homoeopathic doctors and veterinary surgeons, regard the symptoms as essentially the reaction of the animal's body to the disease.

They aim to treat the whole animal, rather than the symptoms of the disease alone. Some alternative therapies are difficult to assess scientifically.

For instance, the holistic approach may require an animal, with apparently the same set of symptoms as another, to be treated differently because it is perceived by the practitioner to have a different basic temperament.