Introduction of very powerful medicine by pharmaceutical companies after Second World War
After the war the Heilpraktiker law was based on the pre-war one from 1939 in West Germany. In Eastern Germany the Heilpraktiker law was displaced by the approbation of the physicians.[i]
After the end of Second World War new very potent drugs were introduced like the antibiotics. In 1955 the corticosteroid drug Prednisone and Prednisolone were introduced as an immunosuppressant drug. In the early 60s the Contraceptive pills became available. New potent drugs against Asthma and Cough were developed like Alupent (1961), Bisolvon (1963), Berotec (1972), Atrovent (1975), Berodual (1980). In 1963 the first psychoactive drug Valium (diazepam) and in 1973 the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug Diclofenac/Voltaren were launched. Similarly, with the development of Sonography in the 1940s, the Computer Tomography (CT) in 1972 and the Magnet resonance tomography (MRT) in 1973, the diagnostic medical equipment developed rapidly as well.
It was a time where everything seemed possible. The Patient got the impression that Modern Medicine is able to treat all illnesses.
However, during those years of huge development in the pharmaceutical and diagnostics industry the German population experienced a dramatic increase of allergic diseases such as asthma, hay fever, or food allergies which causes rising treatment costs and an increasing burden for the national economy. Although the mortality rates of allergies are not very high, the patient experiences a considerable loss of quality of life (Böcking C.). Furthermore, as only the pathology, the place of the disease, was considered and hardly the whole being (pathogenesis) many clients began to questioning the narrow view.
[i] Initially the education of lay healers in West Germany was prohibited as it was in the law of 1939 but after the constitutional court declared the denial of education as illegal in 1952 the profession had its clear legality! After the reunion of both German countries only 11 Heilpraktiker in East Germany were left!