Cupping has been a folk treatment for thousands of years and has been called "coining" in this country.

Alternative systems of medical practice are complete, comprehensive systems. Examples would include Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Indian Ayurveda, and Homeopathy.

Traditional Chinese Medicine is a comprehensive therapeutic system utilizing herbal therapy, acupuncture, moxibustion, food therapy, massage therapy, therapeutic exercise and a type of energy medicine known as Chi Gong. Traditional Chinese Medicine has been practiced for over 3,000 years, and at present, at least 1/4 of the world's population makes use of one or more of its components.

Ayurveda, which comes from the Eastern Indian words ayu, meaning life, and veda, meaning knowledge, has a very ancient origin, perhaps as distant as 6000BC. Ayurveda is another holistic science based on balance, disease caused from imbalance, and health from balance. Ayurveda is organized in a way that is similar to standard allopathic medicine.

Homeopathy, a system of healing using tiny doses of substances to treat disease, has also been studied. Despite this difficult to understand reasoning, homeopathy has been demonstrated to be effective in controlling trials for treatment of fever and arthritis.