European Traditional Medicine – International Congress – Introductory Statement

Traditional medicine (TM) is a large comprehensive term generally used to refer to systems such as traditional Chinese medicine, Indian ayurveda and Unani medicine, and to various forms of indigenous medicine, but also in Europe there is a very long history of traditional medicine that has a respectable historical and scientific dignity, and many European citizens still rely and trust in it for resolution of many minor and sometimes severe diseases. For all these reasons we decided to organize a congress based on the concept of European Traditional Medicine (ETM). In Europe the dominant health care system is based on allopathic medicine, and also when TM has been partially or fully incorporated into the public health care system like in Tuscany, TM is still termed and considered ‘‘complementary’’, ‘‘alternative’’ or ‘‘non-conventional’’ medicine.