ANTHRO 134A Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Evil Eye, Medical Anthropology, Psychic Surgery
7 Dec 2016
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We talked about the ways in which biomedicine understands disease. A result of natural rather than supernatural processes. George foster (identified two different ways of identifying illness: naturalistic systems explain illness in impersonal, systemic terms. Just because its explained in terms of naturalism, doesn"t mean it fits in with the world view of biomedicine. Natural forces or conditions: cold, heat wind, etc. We think that natural things cause disease such as going outside with your hair wet or walking bare foot on the cold floor. These can translate into some forms of sickness that can cause chills or things like that. These are not part of the biomedical perspective but they are within a naturalistic system. This is the idea that disease can cause injury. Disequilibrium: imbalance un humors; upset in hot-cold dichotomy. (yin and yang) foods can have either heating or cooling properties and this is a part of chinese medicine. This idea of balance is classic within biomedicine.
