Disease Etiologies in Non-Western Medical Systems

This paper argues that disease etiology is the key to cross-cultural comparison of non-Western medical systems. Two principal etiologies are identified: personalistic and naturalistic. Correlated with personalistic etiologies are the belief that all misfortune, disease included, is explained in the same way; illness, religion, and magic are inseparable; the most powerful curers have supernatural and magical powers, and their primary role is diagnostic. Correlated with naturalistic etiologies are the belief that disease causality has nothing to do with other misfortunes; religion and magic are largely unrelated to illness; the principal curers lack supernatural or magical powers, and their primary role is therapeutic . [disease, religion, and magic; ethnomedicine, medical anthropology, non-Western medical systems, shamans]     

Caida de Mollera among Children of Mexican Migrant Workers: Implications for the Study of Folk Illnesses

Information about the folk illness caida de mollera was collected from Mexican and Mexican American migrant mothers who had treated their children for the illness, and from physicians in a clinic that served this population. These physicians believed that the vast majority of the sets of symptoms were worthy of medical attention and could be life threatening if not treated. This research report concurs with other studies that suggest that although Mexican folk illnesses are conceptualized to have folk-social and psychological causes, they are also seen to have biological causes and physiological symptoms that can be treated by biomedical methods. This report outlines a model for understanding aspects of folk illnesses that includes folk vs. biomedical ideas about disease, causes vs. symptoms, and psychological vs. physiological aspects of sickness. It also suggests that the kinds of questions anthropologists ask about these illnesses may need to be modified—shifting away from questions about treatments of causes and refocusing on those about the treatment of physiological symptoms—if we are to more fully understand home approaches to the management of these illnesses, [folk illnesses, Mexican, Mexican American, farmworkers]     

Concepts of illness and treatment practice in a caboclo community of the Lower Amazon

Comparatively little has been written recently about the health consequences of social change and economic development in Amazonia. This study focuses on patterns of morbidity, treatment practices, and illness beliefs among caboclos of the Lower Amazon. It suggests that for these people traditional medicine is a salient marker of ethnic identity. An understanding of beliefs concerning disease etiology is critical to an appreciation of individual treatment choices in a plural medical system such as that found within the Lower Amazon region, where traditional healers can play a pivotal role in developing effective linkages to clinical services, [traditional healers, Amazonia, caboclos, medical pluralism]     

Health,illness, and immigration. East Indians in the United States.

East Indian immigrants to the United States represent the diversity in religion, language, and culture that exists in India, so it is difficult to make unequivocal statements about their health beliefs and behaviors. Despite the diversity, an understanding of Ayurvedic humoral concepts of health and illness provides a key to some pervasive and persistent ideas and practices. India has a pluralistic medical system in which Western medicine, which is increasingly popular for some ailments, is one option among many. Even those who are familiar with the "Western" medical system in India may find American medicine alien.     

Desire,Envy and Punishment: A Matsigenka Emotion Schema in Illness Narratives and Folk Stories

Accumulating evidence suggests that folktales in some societies are characterized by a culturally constructed underlying emotional structure, or Cultural Emotion Schema. In this paper we argue that Matsigenka illness narratives and folk stories share an underlying emotion schema, in which death and suffering result from conflicts between strong-willed individuals prompting anger and aggression. Analysis of illness narratives collected by Izquierdo in the Matsigenka community of Kamisea in the Peruvian Amazon between 1996 and 1999 reveals a common pattern in which envy and frustration lead to the belief in sorcery as the main cause of illness and death. This pattern contrasts with the typical stories of a previous generation collected by the Johnsons among the Matsigenka of Shimaa and other Matsigenka researchers, where sorcery beliefs were virtually absent. Our argument is that important changes in ecology, community, politics, and religion have led to a systematic rise in feelings of envy and frustration, and that these have increased the likelihood that sorcery accusations will occur. We explore the likelihood that such beliefs increase as egalitarian peoples become more crowded into settlements where they are likely to experience greater inequality, more competition for resources and increased societal and personal stress.     

Letting the Air Out: <Emphasis Type="Italic">Aire</Emphasis> as an Empty Signifier in Oaxacan Understandings of Illness

“Air (aire, also aigre) in the body” is a frequent explanation of illness according to the traditional medical beliefs in Mexico. Anthropologists have generally scrutinized aire in the context of other common folk illnesses treated by traditional healers (curanderas). However, drawing on my research in the communities of Northern Oaxaca I suggest that aire occupies a more distinct position in the folk medical cosmology than it has usually been credited with. This distinction rests on the notion’s exceptional ambivalence and openness to multiple interpretations. “Air” is recurred to as the cause of illness mainly in situations where every other explanation, either “traditional” or “biomedical,” seems to be inadequate. The physical properties of air—its transparency, invisibility, apparent immateriality, near omnipresence, and virtual “nothingness”—render it a suitable explanation of the last resort. Local understandings of what aire “is” are often vague and elusive, and in many respects the term functions in folk medical discourse as an “empty signifier.”     

The scope of ethnomedical science

The subject matter of the field of ethnomedicine is outlined in this paper. Basic concepts and problem concerns are described. The linkages which ethnomedicine has with the other social and biologic disciplines are discussed. Ethnomedicine deals with information pertaining to social adaptation, deviant behavior, illness, disease, medical taxonomy, folk medical knowledge, and systems of medical care. Some of the problems inherent in studying these issues are described. Attention is also given potentially rich areas of inquiry which, heretofore, have not been cast in an ethnomedical context.     

The case of curers, noncurers, and biomedical experts in Pichátaro, Mexico. Resiliency in folk-medical beliefs

We explore potential conceptual and cultural change in folk-medical models within a Mexican community that may have taken place over the past 30 years. Building on a study from the 1970s, we explore the effects a government-supported biomedical clinic had on the content and distribution of folk-medical concepts. Surprisingly, we find that despite a dramatic increase in access to biomedicine and a host of socioeconomic shifts opening access to new medical ideas, folk-medical knowledge in Pichátaro, Michoacán, Mexico has remained largely unchanged with respect to its distribution and content. Curers and noncurers not only agree with one another but also continue to agree with a general model held in the 1970s. It is the medical models of clinic personnel that stand out as odd within the community. Yet, despite these conceptual differences, the biomedical facilities of the town are well attended.     

Urban Folk Medicine: A Functional Overview

Social and economic functions of folk illness and folk medicine are fairly well known for rural contexts but still lack codification for urban milieus. In this exploratory paper, folk health practices are examined in terms of their response to urban socioeconomic characteristics. Such practices appear to serve functions of acculturation, guilt displacement resulting from failure to achieve, and subgroup identity maintenance, among others. Folk practices are resilient, readily shifting to adjunct functions of healing under pressure from effective modern medical and welfare systems . [medical anthropology, urban anthropology, curanderismo, ethnology, health]     

Bodily Remembering: Memory,Place, and Understanding Latino Folk Illnesses among the Amuzgos Indians of Oaxaca,Mexico

This paper takes the theoretical construct of popular nosology of Latino folk illnesses and combines it with Edward Casey’s concept of bodily remembering in order to more fully describe the role of memory and place in the illness experiences of the Amuzgos Indians of Oaxaca, Mexico. I ethnographically describe, across time, the interrelated links among social events, physical symptoms, and illness narratives of Latino folk illness popular nosologies as they are contextualized in their unique, social topographies. This enlarged theoretical perspective implies a smallest unit of meaning that is ethnographically defined, but that will often encompass more than the individual sufferer and more than one illness. The research objective of this study was to understand Amuzgan illness experiences through the narratives of detailed case histories and ethnographic observations that were gathered during 18 months of qualitative research. The data show that Amuzgos experience Latino folk illnesses as bodily rememberings of illness events combined with negative interpersonal interactions. Healing these Latino folk illnesses implies curing bodies, households, social relationships, and living environments.     

Secondary syphilis with pulmonary involvement.

Interviews with 25 Spanish-Americans of Taos County, New Mexico, indicate that time and acculturation have greatly eroded the belief in and practice of curanderismo, the traditional folk medical system of the Southwest. Curanderismo in northern New Mexico today has moved from being a primary and important source of medical care to one used alternatively and very occasionally in cases of pediatric disorders, chronic illnesses and pain, and for those maladies still classified according to the traditional folk beliefs.     

Three days for weeping: dreams,emotions, and death in the Peruvian Amazon

Funeral customs and beliefs about the dead among the Matsigenka of Peru reflect great anxiety over the contagion of death and the power of the dead over the living. In this article, these beliefs and practices are interpreted in light of a native theory about emotion. For the Matsigenka, excessive displays of emotion, especially grief, anger, and aggressive sexuality, cause a vicious cycle of unhappiness, social disruption, illness, and death. Moving beyond a culturally particular, symbolic-interpretive perspective, the author also draws on personal experiences both in the field and at home to reflect on the phenomenology of grief across cultures.     

The evolution of witchcraft and the meaning of healing in colonial Andean society

This paper explores the ways in which traditional beliefs of Andean peoples regarding health and sickness were transformed by the process of Spanish colonization. It also examines how the colonial context devolved new meanings and powers on native curers. The analysis of these transformations in Andean systems of meanings and role structures relating to healing depends on an examination of the European witchcraze of the 16th-17th centuries. The Spanish conquest of the Inca empire in the mid-1500's coincided with the European witch hunts; it is argued that the latter formed the cultural lens through which the Spanish evaluated native religion--the matrix through which Andean concepts of disease and health were expressed--as well as native curers. Andean religion was condemned as heresy and curers were condemned as witches. Traditional Andean cosmology was antithetical to 16th century European beliefs in the struggle between god and the devil, between loyal Christians and the Satan's followers. Consequently, European concepts of disease and health based on the power of witches, Satan's adherents, to cause harm and cure were alien to pre-Columbian Andean thought. Ironically European concepts of Satan and the supposed powers of witches began to graft themselves onto the world view of Andean peoples. The ensuing dialectic of ideas as well as the creation of new healers/witches forged during the imposition of colonial rule form the crux of this analysis.     

Health care and health care seeking strategies among Puyallup Indians

This study replicated Kleinman's research on family-based popular health care in Taiwan among the Puyallup Indians of Washington. Standardized interviews were conducted among 80 Puyallup families to determine family health practices and beliefs, and the patterns of referral to professional practitioners. Comparisons are made between the Puyallup and Taiwanese family health care practices and health care seeking processes. The author concludes that the relative absence of folk medicine and the availability of free medical care among the Puyallup are the most important factors causing the variance between the rates of family treatment and the patterns of health care seeking behaviors between the Puyallup and the Taiwanese.     

Diagnostic Dilemmas and Cultural Diversity in Emergency Rooms

Language and cultural beliefs play an extremely important role in the interaction between patients from diverse cultural groups and physicians. Especially in emergency rooms, there are many dangers in missed communications. A patient from a foreign culture, especially one who does not speak English, often expresses symptoms in ways that are unfamiliar to many American physicians. Specific areas of cultural vulnerability can be identified for the major ethnic groups in the United States as they interact with the scientific medical system. A short review of folk medical beliefs and recommendations for improving diagnostic accuracy and treatment may assist emergency room staffs in offering care that is culturally acceptable to patients of diverse ethnic backgrounds.     

Susto, Coraje, and Abuse: Depression and Beliefs About Diabetes

Mexican immigrants in the US often incorporate folk beliefs into diabetes etiologies but little is known about the relationship between such beliefs and depression. This study examines the relationship of diabetes beliefs and depression among 404 first- and second-generation Mexican immigrants seeking diabetes care in safety-net clinics in Chicago and San Francisco. We used multivariate linear regression to compare the association of depression with beliefs that susto (fright), coraje (anger), and/or interpersonal abuse cause diabetes, adjusting for gender, age, income, education, diabetes duration, co-morbidities, language preference, and acculturation. We incorporated the belief that abuse causes diabetes based on previous ethnographic research. Individuals reporting belief that abuse contributes to diabetes were significantly more likely to report symptoms of depression before (β?=?1.37; p?相似文献   

Naming and grouping illnesses in Feira (Brazil)

This paper examines the naming and grouping of illnesses in the popular medicine of Feira de Santana, a city in Northeastern Brazil, in a context of medical pluralism. It discusses the principles used to name illnesses in Feira and the semantic shifts evident in popular nomenclature; examines the grouping of illnesses in Feira; and shows the flexibility of these situationally negotiated categorizations. It also analyzes the place of symptoms in local nosological knowledge and examines three folk illnesses as an illustration of the discussion of illness classification.     

Medical Disease or Moral Defect? Stigma Attribution and Cultural Models of Addiction Causality in a University Population

This study examines the knowledge individuals use to make judgments about persons with substance use disorder. First, we show that there is a cultural model of addiction causality that is both shared and contested. Second, we examine how individuals’ understanding of that model is associated with stigma attribution. Research was conducted among undergraduate students at the University of Alabama. College students in the 18–25 age range are especially at risk for developing substance use disorder, and they are, perhaps more than any other population group, intensely targeted by drug education. The elicited cultural model includes different types of causes distributed across five distinct themes: Biological, Self-Medication, Familial, Social, and Hedonistic. Though there was cultural consensus among respondents overall, residual agreement analysis showed that the cultural model of addiction causality is a multicentric domain. Two centers of the model, the moral and the medical, were discovered. Differing adherence to these centers is associated with the level of stigma attributed towards individuals with substance use disorder. The results suggest that current approaches to substance use education could contribute to stigma attribution, which may or may not be inadvertent. The significance of these results for both theory and the treatment of addiction are discussed.     

Use of traditional and modern health services by Laotian refugees.

Although refugee health care emerged as a special interest in the United States following the influx of almost a million Southeast Asians since 1975, few studies have been done of the influence of refugee traditions on the use of Western medical services. The illness patterns, medical beliefs, and health care behavior of a Southeast Asian refugee group, the Mien from Laos are described in this study. A cohort of 119 Mien refugees living in Richmond, California, was observed for a 6-month period. In-home interviews were undertaken about all episodes of ill health, including treatment and health care decisions. This study shows that the Mien integrate traditional healing beliefs and practices with the use of American health services. Such findings are important because the increasing cultural diversity in the United States, particularly in Western states, necessitates that health care professionals understand the importance of cultural factors for access to and the use of health care by all patients including refugees and other immigrant groups.