ANTHROP 1AA3 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Biomedicine, Herbalism, Medical Anthropology
4 Feb 2017
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Document Summary
Ethno-medicine: the study of cross-cultural health systems (a focus of anthropological research) Western biomedicine (wbm): a healing approach based on modern western science that emphasizes technology in diagnosing and treating health problems related to the human body. A set of concepts that medical anthropologists use to sort out the many cross- cultural labels and perceptions is the disease-illness dichotomy. Disease: a biological health problem that is objective and universal (i. e. a bacterial or viral infection) Illness: culturally specific perceptions and experiences of a health problem. Medical anthropologists study both disease and illness, and they show how both must be understood within their cultural contexts. Often, knowledgeable elders are the keepers of ethnomedical knowledge: they pass on their knowledge through oral traditions. Culture-specific syndromes: a health problem with a set of symptoms associated with a particular culture. Somatization: refers to the process through which the body absorbs social stress and manifests symptoms of suffering (aka embodiment)
