Ethnomedicine

Ethnomedicine is the study of cultural therapies and practices used to treat or prevent illness. Ethnomedicines generally fall into the two major categories of home remedies and disease prevention practices. Home remedies are the domestic activities that one engages in with the specific aim to cure or treat the symptoms of an illness, disease or problem. Similarly, disease prevention practices are activities that one engages in with the specific intent of preventing the onset or progression of ill health or disease. Within any given culture, traditional remedies and practices make sense because they are interpreted within a medical model. A medical model is a framework of meaning and understood relationships between people and the acknowledged causes of illness.

Ethnomedicine is also a sub-field of medical anthropology and deals with the study of traditional medicines: not only those that have relevant written sources (e.g. Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda), but especially those, whose knowledge and practices have been orally transmitted over the centuries.

In the scientific arena, ethnomedical studies are generally characterized by a strong anthropological approach, more than a bio-medical one. The focus of these studies is then the perception and context of use of traditional medicines, and not their bio-evaluation.

See Also

• ethnomedicine by illness
• ethnomedicine by culture group

• Medicinal plants of the American West
• Ayurveda
• Ethnobiology
• Ethnobotany
• Herbalism
• Shamanism
• Chinese medicine
• Pharmacognosy

External links

• Information on Ethnomedicine, mostly of Asian traditions
• Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine

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