Traditional medicine

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v · d · e
Botánicas such as this one in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts cater to the Latino
community and sell folk medicine alongside statues of saints, candles decorated
with prayers, lucky bamboo, and other items.

Traditional Medicine on a market in Antananarivo, Madagascar

Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine) comprises

medical knowledge systems that developed over generations within various
societies before the era of modern medicine. Practices known as traditional
medicines include herbal, Ayurveda, Siddha medicine, Unani, ancient Iranian
medicine, Islamic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, traditional Korean
medicine, acupuncture, Muti, Ifá, traditional African medicine, and other medical
knowledge and practices all over the globe.

It may include formalised aspects of folk medicine, i.e. longstanding remedies

passed on and practised by lay people.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as:

"the health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs incorporating plant,
animal and mineral-based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques and
exercises, applied singularly or in combination to treat, diagnose and prevent
illnesses or maintain well-being."[1]

In some Asian and African countries, up to 80% of the population relies on

traditional medicine for their primary health care needs. When adopted outside
of its traditional culture, traditional medicine is often called complementary and
alternative medicine. Herbal medicines can be very lucrative, generating billions
of dollars in sales, but adulteration or counterfeit herbs can also be a health
hazard.[1]

The WHO also notes, though, that "inappropriate use of traditional medicines or
practices can have negative or dangerous effects" and that "further research is
needed to ascertain the efficacy and safety" of several of the practices and
medicinal plants used by traditional medicine systems.[1] Core disciplines which
study traditional medicine include ethnomedicine, ethnobotany, and medical
anthropology.

Contents

[hide]
• 1 Classical history

• 2 Knowledge transmission and

creation

• 3 See also

• 4 Footnotes

[edit] Classical history

In the written record, the study of herbs dates back 5,000 years to the ancient
Sumerians, who described well-established medicinal uses for plants. Ancient
Egyptian medicine of 1000 BC are known to have used various herbs for
medicine. The Old Testament also mentions herb use and cultivation.

Many herbs and minerals used in Ayurveda were described by ancient Indian
herbalists such as Charaka and Sushruta during the 1st millennium BC.[2] The
first Chinese herbal book was the ShennongBencao Jing, compiled during the Han
Dynasty but dating back to a much earlier date, which was later augmented as
the YaoxingLun (Treatise on the Nature of Medicinal Herbs) during the Tang
Dynasty. Early recognised Greek compilers of existing and current herbal
knowledge include Hippocrates, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Dioscorides and Galen.

Roman writers included Pliny the Elder and Celsus.[3]PedaniusDioscorides

included the writings of the herbalist Krateuas, physician to Mithridates VI King of
Pontus from 120 to 63 BC in his De MateriaMedica. De MateriaMedica was
translated into several languages and Turkish, Arabic and Hebrew names were
added to it throughout the centuries.[4] Latin manuscripts of De MateriaMedica
were combined with a Latin herbal by Apuleius Platonicus (Herbarium
ApuleiiPlatonici) and were incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon codexCotton
Vitellius C.III.

These early Greek and Roman compilations became the backbone of European
medical theory and were translated by the Persian Avicenna (IbnSīnā, 980–
1037), the Persian Rhazes (Rāzi, 865–925) and the Jewish Maimonides.[3]
Translations of Greek medical handbooks and manuscripts into Arabic took place
in the eighth and ninth centuries.

Arabic indigenous medicine developed from the conflict between the magic-
based medicine of the Bedouins and the Arabic translations of the Hellenic and
Ayurvedic medical traditions.[5] Spanish indigenous medicine was influenced by
the Arabs from 711 to 1492.[6]Islamic physicians and Muslim botanists such as al-
Dinawari[7] and Ibn al-Baitar[8] significantly expanded on the earlier knowledge of
materiamedica. The most famous Arabic medical treatise was Avicenna's The
Canon of Medicine, which was an early pharmacopoeia and introduced the
method of clinical trials.[9][10][11] The Canon was translated into Latin in the 12th
century and remained a medical authority in Europe until the 17th century. The
Unani system of traditional medicine is also based on the Canon.

Translations of the early Roman-Greek compilations were made into German by

Hieronymus Bock whose herbal published in 1546 was called KreuterBuch. The
book was translated into Dutch as Pemptades by RembertDodoens (1517–1585),
and from Dutch into English by CarolusClusius, (1526–1609), published by Henry
Lyte in 1578 as A NievveHerball. This became John Gerard's (1545–1612) Herball
or General Hiftorie of Plantes.[3][4] Each new work was a compilation of existing
texts with new additions.

Women's folk knowledge existed in undocumented parallel with these texts.[3]

Forty-four drugs, diluents, flavouring agents and emollients mentioned by
Discorides are still listed in the official pharmacopoeias of Europe.[4] The Puritans
took Gerard's work to the United States where it influenced American Indigenous
medicine.[3]

Francisco Hernández, physician to Philip II of Spain spent the years 1571–1577

gathering information in Mexico and then wrote RerumMedicarum Novae
Hispaniae Thesaurus, many versions of which have been published including one
by Francisco Ximénez. Both Hernandez and Ximenez fitted Aztecethnomedicinal
information into the European concepts of disease such as "warm", "cold", and
"moist", but it is not clear that the Aztecs used these categories.[12]Juan de
Esteyneffer'sFlorilegio medicinal de todaslasenfermedas compiled European
texts and added 35 Mexican plants.

Martín de la Cruz wrote an herbal in Nahuatl which was translated into Latin by
Juan Badiano as Libellus de MedicinalibusIndorumHerbis or Codex Barberini,
Latin 241 and given to King Carlos V of Spain in 1552.[13] It was apparently
written in haste[citation needed] and influenced by the European occupation of the
previous 30 years. Fray Bernadino de Sahagún's used ethnographic methods to
compile his codices that then became the Historia General de lasCosas de Nueva
Espana, published in 1793.[13]Castore Durante published his HerbarioNuovo in
1585 describing medicinal plants from Europe and the East and West Indies. It
was translated into German in 1609 and Italian editions were published for the
next century.

[edit] Knowledge transmission and creation

Indigenous medicine is generally transmitted orally through a community, family

and individuals until "collected". Within a given culture, elements of indigenous
medicine knowledge may be diffusely known by many, or may be gathered and
applied by those in a specific role of healer such as a shaman or midwife.[14]
Three factors legitimize the role of the healer – their own beliefs, the success of
their actions and the beliefs of the community. When the claims of indigenous
medicine become rejected by a culture, generally three types of adherents still
use it – those born and socialized in it who become permanent believers,
temporary believers who turn to it in crisis times, and those who only believe in
specific aspects, not in all of it.[15][verification needed]

Elements in a specific culture are not necessarily integrated into a coherent

system, and may be contradictory. In the Caribbean, indigenous remedies fall
into several classes: certain well-known European medicinal herbs introduced by
the early Spaniard colonists that are still commonly cultivated; indigenous wild
and cultivated plants, the uses of which have been adopted from the
Amerindians; and ornamental or other plants of relatively recent introduction for
which curative uses have been invented without any historical basis.[16][verification
needed]

[edit] See also

• African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines

[edit] Footnotes

1. ^ abc"Fact sheet no. 134: Traditional medicine". World Health Organization.

2008-12-01.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs134/en/index.html. Retrieved
2009-05-02.

2. ^GirishDwivedi, ShridharDwivedi (2007) (PDF). History of Medicine:

Sushruta – the Clinician – Teacher par Excellence. National Informatics
Centre. http://medind.nic.in/iae/t07/i4/iaet07i4p243.pdf. Retrieved 2008-
10-08.

3. ^ abcde Kay, MA (1996). Healing with plants in the American and Mexican
West. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 19–20. ISBN 0816516464.

4. ^ abc Raphael, Sandra; Blunt, Wilfrid (1994). The Illustrated herbal. London:
Frances Lincoln. ISBN 0-7112-0914-6.
 5. ^Slikkerveer, L. J. (1990). Plural medical systems in the Horn of Africa: the
legacy of "Sheikh" Hippocrates. London: Kegan Paul International. ISBN 0-
7103-0203-7.

6. ^García Sánchez, E; Carabaza Bravo JM; Hernández Bermejo JE; Ramírez

AJ (1990). "Árboles y arbustos en los textosagrícolasandalusíes (I)". In e
Morales Ruiz Matas CA (in Spanish). Ciencias de la naturaleza en Al-
Andalus :textos y estudios. Consejo Superior de InvestigacionesCientíficas.
ISBN 84-00-07727-X.

7. ^ Fahd, Toufic. "Botany and agriculture". pp. 815. , in (Morelon&Rashed

1996, pp. 813–52)

8. ^ Diane Boulanger (2002), "The Islamic Contribution to Science,

Mathematics and Technology", OISE Papers, in STSE Education, Vol. 3.

9. ^ David W. Tschanz, MSPH, PhD (August 2003). "Arab Roots of European

Medicine", Heart Views4 (2).

10.^ Jonathan D. Eldredge (2003), "The Randomised Controlled Trial design:

unrecognize

11.^ Ortiz de Montellano, B (1975). "Empirical Aztec medicine". Science188

(4185): 215–20. doi:10.1126/science.1090996. PMID 1090996.

Th
12.^ ab Heinrich, M; Pieroni A; Bremner P; (2005). "Plants as medicines". In
Prance G & Nesbitt M. e Cultural history of plants. Routledge. pp. 205–238.
ISBN 0415927463.

13.^Acharya, D; Anshu S (2008). Indigenous Herbal Medicines: Tribal

Formulations and Traditional Herbal Practices. Jaipur: Aavishkar Publishers.
ISBN 9788179102527.

14.^Laguerre, Michel S. (1987). Afro-Caribbean folk medicine. New York:

Bergin & Garvey. ISBN 0-89789-113-9.

15.^ Morton, JF (1975). "Current folk remedies of northern Venezuela".

Quarterly Journal of Crude Drug Research13: 97–121.

[show]v · d · eTraditional medicine

E
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Traditional Chinese medicine | Kampo (Japanese) | Traditional Korean
A medicine | Traditional Mongolian medicine | Traditional Tibetan medicine
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G
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e medicine | Medieval medicine | Naturopathic medicine | Prehistoric
r medicine | Medicinal Plant Conservation
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[show]v · d · eTraditional components in humanity

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Traditional Chinese characters ·Traditional medicine ·Traditional music
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M
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r ·Indianapolis 500 ·Daytona 500 ·Monaco Grand Prix ·Super Bowl ·Grey
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 [show]v · d · eIndigenous peoples of the world by continent

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Indigenous peoples by geographic regions

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_medicine"

Categories: Traditional medicine | Medical anthropology | Concepts in alternative

medicine

Hidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with

unsourced statements from March 2009 | All pages needing factual verification |
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