Stefan Ecks
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814724767
- eISBN:
- 9780814760307
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814724767.003.0006
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This concluding chapter returns to “mind food,” showing how psychiatrists are both trying to counter nonbiomedical notions of drug effects and the biomedical model of short-term targeted action ...
More
This concluding chapter returns to “mind food,” showing how psychiatrists are both trying to counter nonbiomedical notions of drug effects and the biomedical model of short-term targeted action itself. “Mind food” after all echoes the popular centrality of digestion, so likening psychopharmaceuticals to food makes these drugs seem innocuous. These biomedical prescribers explain the action of psychopharmaceuticals as “mind food” and that they compare ill moods to a nutritional imbalance is deeply ironical if the paradigmatic opposition between specific etiology and humoralism in the history of medicine is considered. Calcutta doctors tend to evade explaining diagnoses and therapies when this causes resistance from patients, and there is no regulation that stands in their way. The chapter goes on to elaborate on the medical and ethical implications of these issues, highlighting the ongoing public anxieties regarding mind medications.Less
This concluding chapter returns to “mind food,” showing how psychiatrists are both trying to counter nonbiomedical notions of drug effects and the biomedical model of short-term targeted action itself. “Mind food” after all echoes the popular centrality of digestion, so likening psychopharmaceuticals to food makes these drugs seem innocuous. These biomedical prescribers explain the action of psychopharmaceuticals as “mind food” and that they compare ill moods to a nutritional imbalance is deeply ironical if the paradigmatic opposition between specific etiology and humoralism in the history of medicine is considered. Calcutta doctors tend to evade explaining diagnoses and therapies when this causes resistance from patients, and there is no regulation that stands in their way. The chapter goes on to elaborate on the medical and ethical implications of these issues, highlighting the ongoing public anxieties regarding mind medications.
Stefan Ecks
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814724767
- eISBN:
- 9780814760307
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814724767.003.0004
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter examines Calcutta homeopaths, emphasizing their self-proclaimed ability to target patients' “nerves.” The influential position of homeopathy in Bengal helps us to understand lay ...
More
This chapter examines Calcutta homeopaths, emphasizing their self-proclaimed ability to target patients' “nerves.” The influential position of homeopathy in Bengal helps us to understand lay suspicions of biomedical drugs as expensive, full of toxic side effects, and capable only of superficial “suppression” of illness symptoms. Invented by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843), homeopathy has been practiced in India since the early nineteenth century. Under Indira Gandhi, in 1973 the Indian Parliament recognized homeopathy as one of seven “national systems of medicine.” Today homeopathy is supervised alongside other forms of Indian medicine in a department of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare called AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Homoeopathy).Less
This chapter examines Calcutta homeopaths, emphasizing their self-proclaimed ability to target patients' “nerves.” The influential position of homeopathy in Bengal helps us to understand lay suspicions of biomedical drugs as expensive, full of toxic side effects, and capable only of superficial “suppression” of illness symptoms. Invented by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann (1755–1843), homeopathy has been practiced in India since the early nineteenth century. Under Indira Gandhi, in 1973 the Indian Parliament recognized homeopathy as one of seven “national systems of medicine.” Today homeopathy is supervised alongside other forms of Indian medicine in a department of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare called AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Homoeopathy).
