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Terrain Theory: The Basis of Naturopathic Medicine 

When I went through my training in complementary medicine around 2007, I was in one of the last cohorts of students taught about two theories of disease; ‘Germ Theory’ and ‘Terrain Theory’. At the time, I paid little attention to the importance of what I was being taught about the terrain, due to the assumption that it was ‘old, redundant and disproven science’. It seems that since 2007, terrain theory, which is one of the fundamental underpinnings of 'the old guard' of complementary medicine philosophy and practice, has been lost. It is no longer mentioned anywhere in the curriculum of any Australian based complementary medicine course that I am aware of. This has occurred, in part, from an unprecedented push towards evidence-based medicine, and the slow dilution of traditional evidence-based practice. This is not to say that one is better than the other. It is likely that in order for...