Medicines in Context: An Introduction

Abstract

This book is about medicines — substances used in the treatment of sickness. Because medicines are material objects (we speak of materia medico) and because there is a ‘natural science’ of medicines (pharmacology), they appear to be natural aspects of the real world. And so they are. But like every aspect of human experience, they always exist within particular cultural and social realities. Various systems of cultural understanding endow them with specific qualities and powers; that is to say, they have culturally defined meanings as well as bio-chemical properties. As objects, medicines are produced, distributed and appropriated through institutions and interactions of various kinds. They are socially transacted from the time they are gathered in the bush or produced in a factory until they are rubbed on by a concerned mother or injected by a helpful neighbor. If we want to understand how medicines are actually used, we must go beyond the bio-chemistry of the substances themselves, to the situations in which the substances are perceived and applied.