ANTHROP 1AA3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Medical Anthropology, Leprosy, Quran
27 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Healers (Curanderos) – Haka people (don’t want modern medicine can seek
out other medical options – natural options)
• Espiritistas (spiritists)
• Hueseros (bonesetters)
• Sobadoras (masseurs)
• Parteras (midwives)
• Homeopath, etc.
• Selection of healer based on symptoms/illness
Healing and Healers
• Special ability to diagnose and treat
• How to pick healers? ability to heal (school, hereditary, Japan men who have
the ability to go into seizure are selected. Do you have training on human
body, years or rituals/tests. Certification – form of ritual, recognition of
completion, legal, initiation ritual. Professional image – live in separate hut,
clothing (white coat), carrying around tool. Expect payment, etc.
• Personal healer
• Community healing - They do these all night healing dances, everyone
participates, and has access to it
• For us, government pays
• Chinese doctor gets paid year round – like maintenance throughout the year.
Don’t pay when they are sick. Different payments in different cultures.
Culture-Specific Syndrome: Anorexia Nervosa
• Industrial, Western societies
• Mostly in Euro-American adolescent girls
• Difficult to cure medically
• No clear biological cause
• Linked to concern with appearance and body weight
• There may be a genetic component
• Self induced vomiting
• Resistance to maintaining a normal body weight
• Fear of getting fat
• Missed more than 3 periods
• Body knows you shouldn’t have kids, if you can feed yourself
• More in developed world
• After cases seen over the world
• Venus figure – different idea of body weight
• Recent – nudes, depict higher BMI
• Contemporary – views are not centered around thinness
• Marilyn Monroe – plus size female now was idea in 1960s
St. Catherine of Siena
• Self starvation
• Miracle maidens – were highly esteemed
• Holy anorexia
• Regarded as saint, complete control of body was sign of devotion, she died
with stroke, not an healthy condition.
Document Summary
Healers (curanderos) haka people (don"t want modern medicine can seek out other medical options natural options: espiritistas (spiritists, hueseros (bonesetters, sobadoras (masseurs, parteras (midwives, homeopath, etc, selection of healer based on symptoms/illness. Healing and healers: special ability to diagnose and treat, how to pick healers? ability to heal (school, hereditary, japan men who have the ability to go into seizure are selected. Do you have training on human body, years or rituals/tests. Certification form of ritual, recognition of completion, legal, initiation ritual. Professional image live in separate hut, clothing (white coat), carrying around tool. Expect payment, etc: personal healer, community healing - they do these all night healing dances, everyone participates, and has access to it, for us, government pays, chinese doctor gets paid year round like maintenance throughout the year. Ecological/epidemiological approach: environment interacts with culture to influence the cause and spread of health problem.
