By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-10-15 23:11:23 | Updated at 2026-10-15 23:44:53
39 minutes ago
MIDDLETOWN, N.Y.—The Northern Medical Center in Middletown has held a medical summit to discuss a new approach to medicine, ACES, which stands for anatomy, chemistry, energy, and spirit.
Northern Foundation for Medicine & Health and the medical center held the ACES Medicine Launch & Strategic Summit on Oct. 11. It was focused around ACES Four-Dimensional Medicine, which is a medical framework directed toward keeping a person healthy, not just treatment.
The creator of ACES, Dr. Jingduan Yang, described the framework as an integrative approach to medicine. He believes that every dimension of a human being is interconnected, interdependent, and unique.
“The body’s structural integrity, nutritional balance, the energetic abundance, and our spiritual health affects each other,” Dr. Yang said in a media statement. “For example, your value system determines how you interpret life events, and your interpretation of life events determine how you think about it, feel about it, and respond to it, and consequently, that affects your chemical and physical health.”
The event was intended for practicing physicians, nurses, students, and other health professionals, and speakers included ACES’s creator, an expert on homeopathy with a deep connection to the Middletown Community Campus, along with the founding chair of the Department of Integrative Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at Sidney Kimmel Medical College.
An introduction and update on the development of the Northern School of Medicine and Health Sciences was also given. The school is being founded by Yang and is currently in the process of acquiring funding. It will be located at 14 Jason Place in the Middletown Community Campus, the same large building the medical center is in.
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The school has received 250 books on homeopathy from Certified Classical Homeopath Barbara Lowry, and the gift was dedicated during the conference. Lowry said she heard about the ACES model, and that her homeopathy books could contribute to the development of the school. The books were put in a cabinet dedicated to Lowry.
Lowry described homeopathy, whose name derives from the ancient Greek for “similar suffering,” as treating the person rather than the disease. Instead of over-medicating, homeopathy focuses on living healthier.
Lowry said: “People need to be treated as unique and whole individuals; it’s about treating the whole person-mind, body, and spirit. The ACES model is all about emotional well-being, good nutrition, and building a strong immunity to make you less susceptible to disease.”
“From my perspective as a homeopathic practitioner, the most important part is the S in the ACES model: soul or spirit.”
Homeopath, acupuncturist, and author Jerry Kantor spoke about the practice’s deep connection to the area where the Northern Medical Center is. The Middletown Community Campus was formerly the Middletown State Homeopathic Hospital. Opened in 1874 and closed in 2006, it was the first purely homeopathic psychiatric hospital in the nation.
Kantor said the campus is close to his heart because in his book “Sane Asylums,” he wrote a chapter on the functioning and history of the hospital. The book was also dedicated to Selden Talcott, the hospital’s superintendent. source
Kantor told The Epoch Times: “I call it the mother church [of homeopathy]. It was enormous. There were 27 buildings. Famous homeopaths would all come and do their internships here, and then they go off and go to other hospitals.”
“It was the epitome of homeopathy in the institutional setting for mental health. The pity of it is that its message gradually declined. It was replaced by pharmaceutical medicine.”
Part of what shut the hospital down was its success, Kantor said. It opened to hold about 1,000 people, and at its peak was holding 6,000, which caused the quality of care to decline, according to the homeopath.
“It declined, and then this idea came along that we don’t need these places at all. We can just put them on drugs and send them into the community.”
Kantor said one of the great things about the original hospital was that physicians, nurses, and those being treated, all lived at the facility. Patients weren’t locked in rooms, but were encouraged to engage in gardening, crafts, and physical activities like baseball.
The hospital’s baseball team, made up of patients, staff, and regional amateur players, was called the Asylums. They were prominent in the 1890’s, playing against the New York Giants, Cuban Giants, and New York Gothams. Baseball was used as a means of treatment for mental disorders.
The homeopath told the newspaper that he’s happy to hear that the campus is being rehabilitated for different uses, including the medical school.
Northern Medical Center is a state-licensed diagnostic and treatment center in Middletown that is led by Yang as its CEO. The center follows the ACES principles.
