Medical Tradition Research Articles

The Interaction between Hellenic and Persian Pharmacology: What's the output?

Background: Pharmacology has always been of utmost significance to Persian and Hellenic ancient scientists and presented their viewpoints in medical texts. The aim is to assess the interaction between Hellenic and Persian pharmacologists and the resulting output. Methods: Using descriptive-analytical method, primary Persian sources written by scholars such as Raban Tabari, Rhazes, Avicenna, and Jorjani, and also the works by prominent Greek scholars including Theophrastus, Hippocrates, Dioscorides, and Galen were searched using selected keywords, based on inclusion and exclusion critera, without time limit in domestic and foreign databases. Finally, the PRISMA diagram was drawn. Results: Studies show that Persian and Greek doctors have tried to develop the concepts of pharmacology and its applications interactively. In this research, pharmacology in Persian and Greek medical traditions is studied, and their mutual contributions are depicted. The concepts of medicine and pharmacology in Greek and Persian medicine are first analyzed. The reciprocal impacts of these two schools of pharmacology are explored, and at the end, the Persian scholars who have cited Greek scholars in their works are introduced. Conclusion: With the expansion of territories, ancient theories from the farthest lands entered the realm, introducing new drugs and ideas, which by the critical approach of the Persian scholars were sometimes modified and developed.

Self-medication in nonhuman primates: A systematic evaluation of the possible function of the use of medicinal plants.

Animal self-medication is thought to provide an adaptive advantage, as species would actively respond to a disease state or homeostatic imbalances. In wild nonhuman primates, it is challenging to differentiate plant use as part of the diet or as medication, especially because self-medication can be preventive or therapeutic. Here, we aimed to compile the available potential evidence on primate self-medication modes, investigating which proposed requirements are fulfilled for each plant species reported to date. We systematically reviewed the scientific literature on plant use for potential self-medication in wild nonhuman primates. To construct the extensive database, we extracted data on the primate species, study area, plant/plant's part used, the requirement(s) met for demonstrating self-medication modes, and self-medicative behavioral patterns. We also updated available information on plant's biological compounds and/or physical characteristics, pharmacological properties, and ethnomedical uses. We identified 575 plant species (135 families), used by 25 primate species (9 families). Plants were used by Old World monkeys (46.5%, n = 268 plant species), followed by apes (41%, n = 235), New World monkeys (13.4%, n = 77), and prosimians (1%, n = 6). We found three general types of self-medicative behaviors: ingestion (including, but not limited to, leaf-swallowing, seed-swallowing, and bitter pith chewing), topical (fur-rubbing), and nest fumigation. Plant uses were associated with antiparasitic, antibacterial, antimalarial, anti-inflammatory, insect repellent, among other properties. Self-medication is widespread in nonhuman primate species across Central and South America, Africa, Madagascar, and Asia. Long-term field research efforts and studies integrating different research sites and topics are urgent to advance our knowledge into the evolution of plant selection, medical traditions, and to bring insights into potentially novel medicinal plants and bioactive compounds to treat emergent or established primate and human diseases.

Disease, Professionalisation, and Cosmopolitan Encounters: Anne Walter Fearn as a Woman Doctor in China

ABSTRACT Reading Anne Water Fearn’s memoir My Days of Strength (1939) as an empowering narrative regarding female professionalisation, this article explores the intersection of gender, race, and transcultural encounters in representing epidemic disease. Fearn (1867–1939), a Southern American physician in early twentieth-century China, strategically uses disease, particularly epidemics, as a significant agentic actor in conceiving a medical career which transgresses not just gender norms but also the imperialist ideology prevalent in western discourses regarding China. This article first teases out the historical backdrop in which Western medicine conveniently coupled with imperialism in American discourses on China, mapping epidemic disease onto popular imaginations of China and its people. It moves on to trace the ways in which Fearn turns to depictions of China’s epidemic disease and her daughter’s death to displace possible criticism of her professional choices. Furthermore, I demonstrate how gendered approaches to epidemics allow for curiosity in and respect for some local medical practices. As such, the memoir reveals a cross-cultural, cosmopolitan sensitivity regarding local medical traditions as much as a cultivated distance from western medicine’s perceived superiority and dominance that sustain imperialism.

FOLK MEDICINE IN THE TREATISE “DASTŪR AL-‘ILĀJ” IN THE FOCUS OF MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

In the last century, a complex of scienific disciplines has been developing on a large scale - medical anthropology, which studies the sociocultural aspects of medical knowledge, medical traditions, practices and knowledge intertwined with the history of different peoples. Folk medicine, once considered in the field of ethnomedicine, is now considered in the field of medical anthropology, which has taken its place between interdisciplinary anthropology and medicine. Like the development of any scientific discipline, medical anthropology has evolved over the years and the scope of research has expanded. As a result, it has turned into a complex of scientific research, both in the interests of medicine and in other areas not directly related to it. Although the term “medical anthropology” is interpreted by researchers in different senses, scientists unanimously agree that the object of its study is the local culture and a certain intellectual context. The article discusses the role of pets in the tradition of medicine, which is the main source of life support for the Turkic peoples through the medieval medical heritage “Dastur al-‘ilaj”. Based on the information found in the Chagatai and Persian versions of this work, we reflect on the sociocultural understanding of health and disease in the Middle Ages. Written in the first half of the 16th century, this work shows the widespread use in the healing tradition of domestic and wild animals, their bile, blood, bones, etc. There is a lot of interesting information about the preparation of medicines from their products. We decided to consider this information in the article not only as ethnographic materials, but also as valuable data in the field of medical anthropology.

Siddha Self-Inquiry for Flow, Bliss, and Uvagai: Mindfulness for Intuitive Lifestyle in Complex Cardiac Disease.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mental health disorders contribute to significant healthcare expenses. Lifestyle approaches that empower and enable patients to participate in their recovery are needed with the increasing complexity of cardiac patients. Traditional Tamil medical practice of Siddha self-inquiry meditation targets holistic health through intuitive lifestyle transformation. We describe 4 complex cardiac patients who explored Siddha based Hunger Gratitude Experience (HUGE) mindful eating and reported elevated levels of optimism and deeper experience of life as outlined by the 5000-year-old secular Siddha medical tradition. We cannot exclude the role of suggestion and placebo effect in descriptive series. However, the simultaneous improvement in physical health and emotional wellbeing along with demonstrated resilience against unforeseen adversities suggests this is Uvagai, the true essence of Siddha higher consciousness. Uvagai is extreme happiness and may be accessible universally with little formal training and targets positive psychology to improve wellbeing. While flow and bliss states are transient transcendental experiences, Uvagai may be more profound and therapeutic in CVD despite age and comorbidities. Seeking Uvagai can potentially overcome health disparities, including rural, minority, and underprivileged populations for better health. HUGE allows CVD patients to safely engage in Uvagai, experience higher consciousness and intuitively sustain lifestyle transformation.

Senior Resident Grand Rounds: Results From a Survey of 15 Years of Radiology Residency Graduates

ObjectiveRadiology residents in their final year of training at our institution are required to deliver a grand rounds presentation prior to graduation in order to facilitate resident involvement in the medical tradition of ground rounds. We evaluated this requirement by conducting a survey of recent residency alumni on their experience delivering grand rounds and its perceived value in radiology training. Materials and methodsWe developed an anonymous, 10-question survey regarding the alumni experience with the grand rounds presentation requirement, which has been required since 2007. Question formats included yes-or-no and 5 point Likert-type formats, as well as a space to provide comments. ResultsEighty-three alumni were contacted and 39 responded (46.9% response rate). Current practice setting was academic in 41.0%, 46.2% have reused material from their presentation, and 46.2% have given a grand rounds presentation since completing residency. When asked if delivering the presentation was a valuable experience, 2.6% disagreed, 23.1% were neutral, 35.9% agreed, and 38.5% strongly agreed. When asked if they would recommend future senior residents to give a grand rounds presentation, 2.6% strongly disagreed, 30.8% were neutral, 30.8% agreed, and 35.9% strongly agreed. ConclusionsThe majority of survey respondents agree or strongly agree their grand rounds presentation experience was valuable and would recommend future residents to continue this process. Based on survey comments, we conclude this experience is valuable for multiple reasons, including the opportunity to demonstrate mastery of a radiology topic, the ability to repurpose presentation material in the future, and the experience of delivering a formal presentation.

Physicians' Role in Helping to Die

Euthanasia and the duty to die have both been thoroughly discussed in the field of bioethics as morally justifiable practices within medical healthcare contexts. The existence of a narrow connection between both could also be established, for people having a duty to die should be allowed to actively hasten their death by the active means offered by euthanasia. Choosing the right time to end one’s own life is a decisive factor to retain autonomy at the end of our lives. However, there is no definitive consensus on why physicians should be the ones performing the medical procedure to end a person’s life. The moral problems arising from such assertion are not to be taken lightly, for medical tradition has long regarded the duty not to kill, not to actively end a patient’s life, as the core moral obligation that gives meaning to the medical profession. Our concern is to question the moral justifiability of the arguments offered by physicians not to actively help patients die.

Монгольский перевод «Анатомии маньчжуров» в коллекции Д. Ендонова

This study examines a rare Mongolian manuscript called Deger-e-eče toγtaγaγsan dürsü-yin tusbüri-yi büridkegsen bičig, found in the collection of the Buryat Emchi Lama D. Endonov (1870–1937?), stored in the funds of the Museum of the History of Buryatia. It has been established that this manuscript is a Mongolian translation of the «Manchu anatomy» (Dergici toktobuha Ge ti ciowan lu bitbe [Complete record of the whole body, by imperial command]), which was compiled by the Jesuit Father Dominique Parrenin (1665–1741) based on translations of the anatomical treatise of Pierre Dionis (1643–1718) and plates from Bartholin’s «Anatomy». The «Manchu anatomy» was widely used in China (18th – 19th centuries) and Mongolia (19th – 20th centuries), having a significant impact on the development of medical historiography in Inner Asia, primarily on the development of anatomy. The paper pays particular attention to the history of the Manchu and Mongolian translations of the «Manchu anatomy». The treatise is of great interest as a vivid example of the active interaction of various medical traditions, the adaptation and introduction of knowledge of European anatomy into medical practice in Qing China, Mongolia, and Buryatia in the 19th – early 20th centuries.

The biomedical and the relational model of the body, the meaning of illness and quality of care: A comparative analysis

In this article, I argue that every medical tradition is anchored in a certain anthropological understanding of the body, how that body can be afflicted by disease, and how best it can be treated. Also, each model of the body has implications for the nature of the patient-physician relationship and for quality of care. I compare two leading models of the body: the biomedical model, the predominant model in modern medicine; and the relational model, the leading model in indigenous sub-Saharan African medicine; and their implications on the conceptualisation of disease, the nature of the patient-physician relationship and quality of care. I show that because the biomedical model largely limits its clinical attention to the material body, it does not extend its gaze into the spiritual, social and ecological realms like the relational model, and in spite of the reforms it has undergone since the second half of the 20th century, this reductionist outlook has not faded. Also, because of the premium it places on rationality in the clinical encounter, the biomedical model emphasises individualistic values such as autonomy and emotional detachment of the physician from the patient. The relational model, on the other hand, though still uncharted, promotes inclusive values such as empathy, spirituality and harmony in health care. I argue that human nature is more complex than the biomedical and bio-psychosocial models construe; there are marginal models which may contribute to enhancing the biomedical model. Hence, there is a need to consider less-dominant medical approaches to the body.

Overuse: medical novelty or age-old phenomenon?

INTRODUCTION: Mentions of overuse tend to imply it is a recent phenomenon as if irrationality was brought about by technological advances and the development of new procedures. However, it is possible that physicians have been prone to the same cognitive biases since antiquity, also performing inappropriate and excessive procedures. This raises the question of whether the contemporary issue of overuse is a modern phenomenon or inherited from a multi-millennial medical tradition. OBJECTIVE: To infer an answer to this question by summarizing the medical literature about overuse throughout the history of medicine. METHODS: Medical overuse is defined as futile, low-value procedures characterized by excessive use of methods with a high probability of causing more harm than good to patients. It examines the history of medical literature, with a critical look at procedures that might be characterized as harmful, futile, or with excessive use of diagnostic and therapeutic methods. RESULTS: This analysis revealed evidence that such procedures have been taking place throughout many periods of history. Studies have shown that the current prevalence of inappropriate medical procedures can be as high as 29% in the United States and 80% of cases for some individual services around the world. Lack of reliable data thwarts accurate analysis of the prevalence of overuse before the last decade. CONCLUSIONS: Instead of a recent phenomenon, overuse has permeated medical practice from its beginnings until today, regardless of technological advances, and is possibly inherent to the human species.

Accidia e malinconia. Le radici mediche nella descrizione degli accidiosi nel canto VII dell’Inferno dantesco

The relation between the moral account of the capital vices and the philosophical analysis of the passions of the human soul undergoes an important turning point from the 11th century onwards during the recovery of medical knowledge in the medieval West. In this wave of fervour towards a physiological approach in the investigation of the nature of man, the vice of acedia - as described by the Christian moral tradition - and the melancholic temperament - the result of a millenary reworking and technicalisation of medical knowledge - found a point of contact in the passion of sadness. If authors such as Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas, following the Christian heritage, characterised acedia as an escalation of the passion of sadness, the medical tradition from Hippocrates and Galen to Avicenna and Constantine recognised sadness as one of the most distinctive manifestations of the melancholic temperament. The aim of this study is to demonstrate, by retracing some aspects of this interweaving of traditions after the year 1000, how Dante’s description of the sinners of acedia in Canto VII of the Inferno takes up the legacy of this hybridisation between the Christian description of acedia and the physiological description of melancholy.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE TRADITIONAL MALE CIRCUMCISION POLICY IN SOUTH AFRICA

International, 40% of males stand initiated, customarily aimed at spiritual reasons. In popular several African communities, man removal of foreskin is conceded, obtainable intended for traditional purposes, mainly by way of a circumcision custom and a ceremony of path for male hood. The process here raised towards by way of modern man initiation stands regularly accomplished in a non-medical situation through an old-fashioned supplier with no official remedial profession. Once conceded out as a ritual of passageway into male hood, old-style man circumcision is largely accomplished on youngsters (Lowane, N.E., 2021). Traditional benefactors will remain to be a significant basis of initiation for several men in in our country, Research will be based on initiation, whether on medical male circumcision or tradition male circumcision (MMC or TMC), being elimination completely portion of the penis flesh on the penis. The aforementioned may also stand accomplished medically or surgically at hospitals or on circumcision places. Circumcision colleges execute this practice by way of an old-fashioned ceremony of passageway starting childhood to men then it mentioned towards by means of old-style man initiation (TMC). Circumcision exercise takes active even in nowadays has been accomplished only intended for customary or spiritual order, nevertheless the aforementioned cannot at all extended remain regarded lone by way of circumcision. The aforementioned should, instead, likewise remain understood by means of degree towards control the extent of the (HIV/AIDS) disaster. A sum of research lessons institute that initiated males consumed slighter probabilities of constricting AID contamination matched through uninitiated males. According to Palmer, E., Marais, L. and Engelbrecht, M., (2022). ritual circumcision in our country has no impact on social, politics and other sectors of government. This article will to contribute significantly to the implementation of the South African TMCA in the province of EC for study research on traditional male circumcision. Firstly, finding researched work on the issue of TMC is very difficult because there is so much secrecy about this traditional practice to an extent that information is mostly found in newspapers (Mellor, D., 2021). The research done by the World Health Organisation (WHO n.d) examined the practice of TMC in SouthAfrica, Eastern Cape. However, while pointing to some policy issues, it did not address the policy implementation in relation to the Traditional Male Circumcision Policy itself. The main focus of the study is to gain better understanding of the implementation of traditional circumcision policy, the government intervention on the practice and creating synergy between medical, traditional male circumcision and the law governing circumcision.

Islamic Perceptions of the Pandemic: between Divine Decree and Political Plot

The paper begins with a quick examination of the Islamic medical tradition, and then moves on to analyze the reactions on the Arab mass media to the Coronavirus epidemic. From an analysis of various Arab mass media we have been able to observe that part of the Arab world have described the epidemic as a Western conspiracy following the most varied conspiracy theories based on anti-Western sentiments. The paper reports opinions taken from Arab newspapers and broadcasts from different areas of the Arab world and from different orientations. Then the study continues with the analysis of the reactions of the most important jihadist groups as well as the area of political Islām. We can note that the vision on the pandemic carried out by jihadist groups, permeated by anti-Western sentiments, in particular anti-American ones, is fundamentally based on the narrative of divine punishment, with extensive use of prophetic hadīth and Koranic verses, extrapolated without contextualization. Through the analysis of various jihadist writings we can see how their narrative has taken on political traits, exploiting the epidemic to challenge local governments as well as attack the United States. The study ends with the analysis of the positions of the area of political Islām, in this case of the European Council for Fatwa and Research, close to the thought of the more moderate sectors of the Muslim Brotherhood. Through this analysis it emerges how the idea that Covid was a divine decree or a political plot and the politicization of the virus represents a clear break with the ancient Islamic tradition in the medical field. Even from the approach taken towards the pandemic we can therefore observe how Wahhabism and Salafism have brought back the Arab and Islamic world which in its tradition was instead often characterized by a rationalist and pragmatic vision towards worldly and scientific issues.

White Pine in Time and Place

In recent years, Western herbalists, often of settler descent, have contended with a lineage of appropriation and their ongoing relationships with Native plants, communities, and land. Critical—and hard to find—are stories of botanical circulations that foreground the dynamics of circulation, pluralism, and colonialism in which appropriation can be understood and its lessons applied. This article offers one such story. White pine was—and is—an important medicine within Indigenous Ojibwe medical traditions. As such, it was studied and written about by ethnobotanists working in close relation to Ojibwe communities in the early twentieth century. Such circulations took place amid land allotment, industrialized logging, the devastation of pine forests, and the marginalization of botanic practices. Situating stories of white pine in Indigenous, settler colonial, and herbal studies, this article argues that long histories of Western herbalism illuminate botanical appropriation as a settler logic with important consequences for present-day herbal practices.

La enfermedad en discursos religiosos novohispanos del siglo XVII

This article is the result of a brief study of the place that the concept of disease occupies in the Novo-Hispanic religious 17th-century discourse, based on three documents proposed to represent the survival of the three genera causarum of Antiquity: deliberative, panegyric and judicial, a collection of Jesuit talks, a Carmelite chronicle, and a treatise on the extirpation of idolatries. I argue that disease can function in these discourses as either punishment or as purification, facing two notions of healing that are somewhat opposite: one that trusted the arts of pre-scientific medicine, and the other that defended the quasi-magical power of healing religious – i.e., use of cédulas, prayers or sacraments. I also claim that the rhetorical use of disease was not only accessory in these discourses, but it was also a concept that made up one of the essential oratorical causes of Christianity: that which associated – sometimes conflictingly – bodily health with the salvation of the soul. Finally, I contend that the place of disease in these discourses is still limited to the moral conception of health, cultivated from medieval medical traditions, and embodying notions of malicious corporality and virtue as a quality not limited to the soul.

The Pitfalls of the Ethical Continuum and its Application to Medical Aid in Dying

The Pitfalls of the Ethical Continuum and its Application to Medical Aid in Dying

Inquisitor as Physician: Friars, Inquisitors, Women, and Medical Knowledge in Early Colonial New Spain (1530–1650)

Abstract New Spain was the site not only of one of the largest-scale missionary enterprises in Christian history, but also of a prolonged encounter among diverse medical traditions of Mesoamerican, African, and European origin in which male missionaries were central. Given the paucity of licensed physicians in the colony, religious involvement in medical practice remained significant throughout the colonial period. This paper considers the confluence of religion and medicine in the encounters that friars and inquisitors had with women, arguing that in these encounters, missionaries and inquisitors participated in the translation, circulation, and creation of medical knowledge and positioned themselves as both theological and medical authorities, as proponents and translators of Galenic medical theory, and as “confessor-physicians” rather than “confessor-judges.” Women thus played a crucial interlocutory role in the articulation of a colonial religio-medical regime whose primary framers were not physicians, but clergymen.

History of Auriculotherapy: Additional Information and New Developments.

Auriculotherapy, the treatment of patients using ear-point stimulation, is a French technique, deeply rooted in a European medical tradition. Although the French physician, Paul Nogier, MD (1908-1996 ad) invented and promoted auriculotherapy, it is nevertheless worth mentioning, in the course of European history, the occasional use of the ear to relieve head, face, or sciatic nerve pain. It took several centuries to find a physician who attempted to understand why some healers obtained interesting therapeutic results with ear-point stimulation. The exact history of auriculotherapy remained a mystery for a long time. Only recently have researchers begun to understand it better. Many articles, admittedly not based on robust data, wrongly ascribed the discovery of auricular somatotopy to ancient civilizations. It was the recent reading of a book on the treatment of sciatica written in 1869 by Lagrelette that enabled the current author of this article to characterize and confirm the Western roots of auriculotherapy through the history of cauterizations.

Tradisi Pengobatan Mambang Deo-Deo Dalam Pandangan Akidah Islam di Kepenghuluan Teluk Pulai Kecamatan Pasir Limau Kapas Kabupaten Rokan Hilir

This thesis is entitled "Tradition of Treatment of MambangDeo-deo in the View of the Islamic Faith in the PenghuluanTelukPulai District, PasirLimauKapas District, RokanHilir Regency". This tradition is a treatment that is carried out with the supernatural power of a bomo or shaman, by summoning a supernatural being or called Mambang who is considered to be able to treat or cure a sick patient. This study uses a qualitative method and conducts research in a field research that comes from religious leaders, bomo or shamans from the treatment of MambangDeo-deo, and the chairman of the Malay Traditional Institute. Then supported by literature studies related to theoretical opinions. Allah swt does tell his creatures to try, because without effort it is impossible to achieve anything, as well as in the case of treatment for every disease there is a cure, if treated with Allah's permission, it will heal. However, sometimes there are deviations in carrying out treatment and contrary to Islamic creed, as contained in the MambangDeo-deo medical tradition where in practice there are deviations that have the potential to be doubtful (unclear). In carrying out treatment, it should be done without violating the rules of Islamic law. This shows that medical practices that are contrary to the main teachings of Islam must be rejected because they are contrary to Islamic teachings.

The Consilia by Learned Physicians Pietro Andrea Mattioli and Francesco Partini: Dialectic Relations between Doctrine, Empirical Knowledge and Use of the Senses in Sixteenth-century Europe.

SummaryThe present article focuses on the medical practice of Pietro Andrea Mattioli from Siena and Francesco Partini from Rovereto (Trent), learned physicians who worked for the Habsburg courts in the second half of the sixteenth century. They paid particular attention to the body signs of disease and described them in detail through the senses of sight, touch, smell and taste. Such a method allowed them to formulate a plausible diagnosis, which concerned not only a general humoral imbalance but also often a specific organ. Furthermore, the empirical data they observed were interpreted in the light of Galenic medicine, a fluid and adaptable system, capable of including relatively new elements. Partini and Mattioli’s medical consultations reveal peculiar aspects of body examination and offer the opportunity both to seize the inventiveness of Galenic medicine and to explore the complex relationship between learned physicians and the written medical tradition.