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The Autonomy of Tradition: Creating Space for Traditional Medicine

Richard S. Weiss

in Recipes for Immortality: Healing, Religion, and Community in South India

This chapter considers the largest social compass that siddha practitioners have claimed as their own—that of Indian traditional doctors. In opposition to British medical imperialism and later ... More

This chapter considers the largest social compass that siddha practitioners have claimed as their own—that of Indian traditional doctors. In opposition to British medical imperialism and later Western biomedicine supported by the Indian state, siddha doctors have joined forces with practitioners of the other two major traditional medical systems in India, ayurveda and unani, to argue for the inadequacy of Western biomedicine in healing Indian bodies. They have formulated an autonomous space of Indian medical practice and knowledge, ascribing a radical uniqueness and relativism to their knowledge that renders it immune to the critiques of biomedicine.Less

Introduction

Richard S. Weiss

in Recipes for Immortality: Healing, Religion, and Community in South India

This chapter begins by asking: How have contemporary traditional siddha medical practitioners in south India continued to win patronage for their practices? The answer lies not only in the physical ... More

This chapter begins by asking: How have contemporary traditional siddha medical practitioners in south India continued to win patronage for their practices? The answer lies not only in the physical efficacy of specific siddha medical practices, but just as importantly in the imaginative resources practitioners employ to appeal to the hopes and aspirations of Tamils. The chapter pays particular attention to siddha medicine as a traditional medical system. That is, it focuses on the aspects of siddha discourse that link medical knowledge and practice to an ancient community, and it puts forth a theoretical framework in which to examine the impact of this medical discourse on local Tamil identity and community.Less

Chinese Traditional Aetiology and Methods of Cure in Hong Kong: (1976)*

Marjorie Topley

Jean DeBernardi (ed.)

in Cantonese Society in Hong Kong and Singapore: Gender, Religion, Medicine and Money

The position of Chinese medicine in Hong Kong and the problems of official recognition are complex. This book discovered in follow-up interviews that specialists sometimes combine medical treatment ... More

The position of Chinese medicine in Hong Kong and the problems of official recognition are complex. This book discovered in follow-up interviews that specialists sometimes combine medical treatment with ritual treatments; that not all traditional doctors would assert that ritual treatment was without value, although none regarded ritual as their own province; and that some modern Chinese doctors would not say there was nothing in Chinese traditional medicine. One physician used a combination of Chinese and modern medicine in his practice, and a few thought ritual, although not a true method of cure, might have value for certain kinds of patients. This chapter was prompted largely by these discoveries. The data obtained in 1969 have been augmented with information from additional specialists. It does not generalize for the whole of Hong Kong. Dialect differences often go with other sub-cultural differences, and it is possible that some things, particularly concerning ritual practices, have no relevance to other groups.Less

Conclusion: The Holy Science of Siddha Medicine

Richard S. Weiss

in Recipes for Immortality: Healing, Religion, and Community in South India

This final chapter gives recipes for two siddha medicines, one that is said to have the potential to restore youth and cure all diseases. It then discusses two general features of siddha medical ... More

This final chapter gives recipes for two siddha medicines, one that is said to have the potential to restore youth and cure all diseases. It then discusses two general features of siddha medical discourse. The first is the ambiguous and often ambivalent relationship between science and religion in siddha medical rhetoric. In promoting their medicine, siddha practitioners often join physics and metaphysics, the banal and the extraordinary, in order to ascribe authority to the manifest world of Tamil society and material culture. The chapter then discusses the globalizing aspirations of siddha medicine, arguing that for the time being, siddha vaidyas continue to focus their commercial efforts on local, Tamil audiences.Less

 The Creation and Evolution of Qigong

David Ownby

in Falun Gong and the Future of China

This chapter traces the invention and evolution of qigong, the larger movement out of which Falun Gong emerged in 1992. Qigong was created as part of a nativist Chinese reaction to the importation of ... More

This chapter traces the invention and evolution of qigong, the larger movement out of which Falun Gong emerged in 1992. Qigong was created as part of a nativist Chinese reaction to the importation of Western biomedicine in the 1950s, with the goal of protecting and preserving traditional Chinese healing practices—often linked in imperial times to religious and spiritual beliefs. Qigong functioned on a small scale within specialized clinics and sanatoriums linked to Traditional Chinese Medicine in the 1950s and early 1960s, but was severely criticized as “feudal superstition” during the Cultural Revolution and thus largely disappeared. Qigong re‐emerged in the mid‐1970s in the public parks of Beijing, taught by independent masters who had healed themselves and promised to heal others. When qi was “proven” by Chinese researchers to have a scientific existence in the late 1970s, Chinese authorities gave their approval to qigong, thus paving the way for the qigong boom. Qigong superstars such as Yan Xin and Zhang Hongbao became national celebrities and attracted millions of followers in the first popularly led mass movement in China since 1949.Less

Midwifery Training and the Politics of Female Circumcision

Heather Bell

in Frontiers of Medicine in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1899–1940

Training Sudanese midwives and supervising all midwifery practice constituted a distinctive enterprise for the Sudan medical service. The Midwifery Training School, opened in Omdurman in 1921, ... More

Training Sudanese midwives and supervising all midwifery practice constituted a distinctive enterprise for the Sudan medical service. The Midwifery Training School, opened in Omdurman in 1921, recognized practitioners of traditional medicine as agents who could be reformed: it sought to create a class of modern, trained Sudanese midwives, out of, and in rivalry to, an entrenched class of traditional midwives known as dayas. Such a transformation required constant and explicit engagement with Sudanese people, and their cultural norms about gender roles and intimate practices such as childbirth and female circumcision. This chapter argues that the interaction between traditional and Western medicine, and between Sudanese and British cultures engendered by midwifery training and practice in the colonial context, was highly complex and constantly being negotiated. It shows that hierarchies of gender, race, occupation, and class disciplined the medical service's employment of non-European personnel. In addressing the government's handling of the controversial matter of female circumcision, the chapter also provides evidence of the rigid boundary sometimes drawn between medicine and politics in Sudan.Less

The Evolution of Japanese Medicine

Marc A. Rodwin

in Conflicts of Interest and the Future of Medicine: The United States, France, and Japan

This chapter traces the history of Japan's medical political economy. Contemporary conflicts of interest have roots in traditional Chinese medicine. Practice was transformed when the state adopted ... More

This chapter traces the history of Japan's medical political economy. Contemporary conflicts of interest have roots in traditional Chinese medicine. Practice was transformed when the state adopted Western medicine in the late 19th century, by struggles over social welfare at the turn of the 20th century, by state control over medicine and insurance during World War II, and by reforms instituted during postwar reconstruction. As these changes occurred, organized medicine shaped the medical political economy to protect entrepreneurial private practice.Less

Xu Dachun, Giovanni Morgagni, and Intra-abdominal Abscesses

Paul U. Unschuld

in What Is Medicine?: Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing

This chapter studies the observers from China who expressed that they could gain insight in the interior of the human without opening the body. They found the answer instead of in the body, in old ... More

This chapter studies the observers from China who expressed that they could gain insight in the interior of the human without opening the body. They found the answer instead of in the body, in old texts, where some things were written about the organs that they thought had to be interpreted correctly. The Chinese diagrams of the interior of the body were not that bad. They were based on models from the twelfth to fifteenth century. Everything could be seen in the diagrams such as the lungs at the top, the heart underneath, then the spleen. On the side there were the gall bladder, the liver and even deeper there were the small intestine, large intestine, kidneys, and so on. All the organs that were described in the texts of antiquity were visible in these diagrams. Intra-abdominal abscesses have nothing in common with “Traditional Chinese Medicine.” In the late twentieth century, “Traditional Chinese Medicine” was discussed in many Western countries.Less

The Arabs of the Twentieth Century, or Crowding in the Playpen

Paul U. Unschuld

in What Is Medicine?: Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing

The plausibility of old Greek medicine had paled following the end of the Roman Empire in the Early Middle Ages. The Arabs emerged from the desert and were introduced to what the Christian West no ... More

The plausibility of old Greek medicine had paled following the end of the Roman Empire in the Early Middle Ages. The Arabs emerged from the desert and were introduced to what the Christian West no longer wanted. This knowledge was foreign to the Arabs and seemed incomprehensibly superior to their own healing practices. The European and American Arabs had arrived. With incredible astonishment, they learned about needle treatments, herbal knowledge, and summaries of the doctrines. Soon, the “Abus” and “Ibns” of Europe and North America emerged. From the thin booklets, books of many hundred pages were written and key words were flourished like banners before the eyes of the surprised masses. A similar process is now being witnessed. In China, traditional medicine is now officially only valid in playpen format. It was intended for temporary use and what the Chinese had not expected was crowding in the playpen.Less

Left Alone in the Computer Tomograph

Paul U. Unschuld

in What Is Medicine?: Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing

Modern medicine uses technology, even nuclear technology, in diagnosis and therapy. But not only this, technology comes between physician and patient. In diagnosis, the patient is examined by ... More

Modern medicine uses technology, even nuclear technology, in diagnosis and therapy. But not only this, technology comes between physician and patient. In diagnosis, the patient is examined by technology, perhaps even left alone in a computer tomograph. Test results are transmitted to invisible technologists and physicians via monitors. This is a tremendous advance in the treatment of the sick, but, nevertheless, it is frightening to some. People miss having a person to help them deal with their problems. They miss having a physician who personally examines, palpates, talks to them, treats them with his or her hands, and considers their personal fate. The image of high-tech medicine overlaid the successes of this medicine, creating fears that have pushed people to seek alternatives. The traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is such an alternative; for example, acupuncture promised that no technology would come between physician and patient.Less

In the Beginning Was the Word

Paul U. Unschuld

in What Is Medicine?: Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing

This chapter addresses the question of how the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) affected the citizens of industrialized Western nations. TCM has proved to be promising for the minds and bodies of ... More

This chapter addresses the question of how the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) affected the citizens of industrialized Western nations. TCM has proved to be promising for the minds and bodies of the Western nations. In the beginning there was the Word. The Word possesses plausibility and persuasiveness because it mirrors experiences and visions. It mirrors the real or ideal structures that humans live in or would like to live in. It also mirrors existential fears, and the supposedly appropriate strategies for overcoming those fears. Starting in the 1970s, the entire Western world had common experiences and visions, real and ideal structures, as well as fears and corresponding strategies, but its medicine was no longer appropriate for them. As a result, the experiences and visions of the Chinese and Greek traditional medicine were funneled into completely new arenas of healing.Less

Healing and the Energy Crisis

Paul U. Unschuld

in What Is Medicine?: Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing

This chapter examines how traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has affected people of the Western nations. Modern medicine missed the belief in the life force. The effect of TCM on Western nations has ... More

This chapter examines how traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has affected people of the Western nations. Modern medicine missed the belief in the life force. The effect of TCM on Western nations has been promising. The citizens of the Western nations were troubled by several fears. One of the central, most profound fear-provoking experiences of the 1970s to 1990s was the energy crisis. Parallel to the gradual rapprochement of East and West, it replaced the fear of nuclear war. The energy crisis led to wars in distant lands. TCM came as a reassuring factor to these nations as it was taken as someone who finally paid attention to energy, life energy, or a healing dedicated to energy. It reassured that even if the conflicts over energy cannot be solved in distant lands, they could at least be solved in one's own body. This represents a start, with a likely bright future.Less

TCM: Western Fears, Chinese Set Pieces

Paul U. Unschuld

in What Is Medicine?: Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which has had a reassuring effect on Western nations, came from China and some parts of Japan and Korea. The Chinese were needed as technicians in Western private ... More

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), which has had a reassuring effect on Western nations, came from China and some parts of Japan and Korea. The Chinese were needed as technicians in Western private clinics. There, they were skilful helpers. However, the fears of the citizens of industrialized Western nations were foreign to them. Tailoring so-called Chinese medicine to these fears is something they could not and perhaps still cannot manage. Modern immunology offered enough of war in the humans' bodies, not so much by the immunologists themselves, but by their interpreters: science journalists. For most people, the encounter with a potentially fatal illness is the most existential threat there is. No one wants to experience war in their own house, much less in their own body. At a time of existential fear, what is wanted is to feel warmth, empathy, and harmony. This is what TCM offers. It seems reassuring.Less

Harmony, Not War

Paul U. Unschuld

in What Is Medicine?: Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) seemed reassuring to the Western nations. Among the accusations of those who despair of modern medicine, one finds dehumanization, antihumanism, detachment from the ... More

Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) seemed reassuring to the Western nations. Among the accusations of those who despair of modern medicine, one finds dehumanization, antihumanism, detachment from the human, reduction to the inorganic. The loss of the center is also, above all, the loss of central meaning. In today's world, people want more than just reality. They want to know the origin of their illness. Modern medicine cannot offer that. TCM offers a center. It offers meaning. It rejects the inorganic and centers on the life force, qi. It links various complaints and traces them back to one central illness. This gives meaning to the illness and promises a return into the greater balance, without chemicals, without technology in diagnosis and therapy, without warfare or the certainty of collateral damages.Less

Contented Customers in a Supermarket of Possibilities

Paul U. Unschuld

in What Is Medicine?: Western and Eastern Approaches to Healing

It is astonishing that modern Western medicine works for the Chinese and the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) works for the citizens of industrialized Western nations. This indicates a cultural ... More

It is astonishing that modern Western medicine works for the Chinese and the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) works for the citizens of industrialized Western nations. This indicates a cultural exchange which is yet incomplete. China had happily exchanged the cage of the systematic correspondences for the cage of modern science. In the West, those who could not accept the bars of chemistry, physics, and technology constructed the playpen of TCM. In this supermarket of possibilities, customers still spend the most money on products from Europe and North America. In the end, the reconstructed TCM playpen is also a Western product. But it is certainly not mainstream. The TCM doctrine is no longer in keeping with the times. The initial plausibility of its theory guaranteed its acceptance. For some time now, a transformation to convention has been taking place. Schools instruct practitioners and effects are seen.Less

From Plants to Pharmaceuticals

Abena Dove Osseo-Asare

in Bitter Roots: The Search for Healing Plants in Africa

Bitter Roots introduces an innovative new way to think about drug discovery from plants within a transnational perspective. It historicizes the process of drug discovery for each plant in a ... More

Bitter Roots introduces an innovative new way to think about drug discovery from plants within a transnational perspective. It historicizes the process of drug discovery for each plant in a “metaphorical family of bitter roots” through the testing of popular accounts of innovation gleaned from oral testimonies, scientific articles, and product labels. To compare how people engaged in a common method for bringing traditional medicine into the laboratory, it proposes a schematic of five basic practices used by both scientists and healers. It uses competing narratives for how healers, scientists and others created records, experiments, explanations, products, and harvests to examine differing claims to priority, locality, appropriation, and benefits for each species. Herbal medicine and pharmaceutical chemistry are therefore “coproduced” and have mutually supportive histories spanning continents and centuries. Rereading pharmacological discoveries across nations reveals the interplay between medical lineages and ultimately the multiple benefactors of our intellectual inheritance.Less

Cultural Attitudes and the “Traditional Medicines Paradox”: Evidence from Ghana and the Philippines

Joan Costa-Font and Azusa Sato

in Social Economics: Current and Emerging Avenues

Traditional medicines continue to be widely used worldwide despite the increasing availability of modern medicines. We term this phenomenon the ‘traditional medicines paradox’. We investigate a ... More

Traditional medicines continue to be widely used worldwide despite the increasing availability of modern medicines. We term this phenomenon the ‘traditional medicines paradox’. We investigate a potential explanation for such a paradox, namely the presence of ‘entrenched cultural beliefs’ in explaining continued use. As such, this paper draws upon unique data collected in Ghana to examine the impact of 6 attitudes towards traditional medicines and healers on utilisation. To further test the importance of attitudes, we look at data from the Philippines. In both cases, cultural attitudes such as perceived healer knowledge, trust, belief in ability to cure, and acceptability are found to be significantly associated with utilisation. Hence it is unlikely that traditional medicines will be supplanted simply by increasing access to modern drugs as they are not perceived to be substitutes and the systems exhibit divergent logic.Less