Health and traditional medicine cultures in Latin America and the Caribbean

Abstract

In this article, the authors summarise the origins and development of traditional medicine cultures in the Latin American and Caribbean regions, beginning with an overview of terminology and definitions related to ‘medicine’ and ‘medical systems’. A short look is taken at original medicine cultures and at how they syncretised with colonial European medicine to give birth to a mosaic of lay and traditional medicine practices still in evidence in the New World today. A review is then made of the latest and main bibliographic sources in traditional medicine for the region, which are then analysed briefly. The main body of the paper deals with the different research approaches to traditional medicine cultures of which seven are discussed here. The authors conclude by stressing the need for closing the gap between the social and medical sciences in order to reach a better understanding of the health needs of the population. Biology and culture are at the centre of the discussion between medicine and anthropology where two trends dominate, viz. the socio-cultural and the biomedical models. The main task for ethnomedical researchers in the Latin American region is to work towards the creation of a bio-socio-cultural model in an attempt to enrich systems qualitatively in the development of more humane and efficient interventions, both in the clinical field as in the field of health policies and strategies.