ANTHROP 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Dental Caries, Medical Anthropology, Humorism
17 Jan 2017
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Document Summary
The study of human health and disease, health care systems, and biocultural adaptation. All cultures have a health system: perceptions and beliefs about the body, classi cations of health problems, prevention measures, healing/healers. Illness - perceptions and experiences of a health problem: i dont feel well, i"m tired all the time, feeling of not being in a normal healthy state, our perceptions of illness are very strongly related to culture. Disease - biological health problem; universal: measles, broken bones, tooth decay. Our visions of how disease works are products of culture. Explanatory models for why we get sick are products of culture. Hippocrates (ancient greece: believed that the body should be treated as a whole. Associated with brain; dull: yellow bile. Irritable, associated with liver: black bile. Depressed: these exist in every person; everyone has a dominant one, humoral theory of disease, you can tell which humour a person has by their complexion.
