Mosby’s Dictionary of Complementary and Alternative Medicine

CAM has its own jargon and it is therefore reasonable to have a dictionary of this language. Several such books already exist but, without question, there is room for a definitive one. So is this book it? According to the preface, the dictionary does ‘not attempt to be comprehensive’. This seems surprising – is this not precisely what a dictionary should be? Looking through the entries, one is struck by the fact that many of them (I estimate at least one-third of the total) do not relate to CAM at all but to terms from general medicine: from ‘ACE’ to ‘zytomaticomaxillary’. Looking closer I found a lot of confusion, inconsistencies, inaccuracies and omissions. A few examples should suffice. ‘Allopathy’ is defined as drug treatments antagonising the disease. In fact, it was Hahnemann’s deliberately derogatory term for everything non-homoeopathic. Bach Flower Remedies and cell therapy are not included at all. Chelation is mentioned but not chelation therapy as used in CAM. High-velocity, low-amplitude thrusts are described as an osteopathic treatment. In fact, they are the hallmarks of chiropractic. Astonishingly, Traumeel receives an entry – this is a German trademark and very few such terms are entered.

So is it a poor book? No, certainly not. It has its place and will be useful to many – but sadly it is not the definitive CAM dictionary.