PMID: 7371422Mar 1, 1980Paper

Many medicines in one: curing in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry
A Johannes

Abstract

The actual means by which the clinical successes of non-Western medical treatments are achieved has been little explored. More specifically, analyses have focused almost exclusively on their psychotherapeutic value, with some attention to the pharmacodynamics of plant remedies. The central argument of this paper is that such a perspective has been generated more by the selective psychiatric orientation of cross-cultural field-workers than by the diverse realities of the curing systems themselves. The paper describes medical care among the Nekematigi, Benabena-speaking horticulturalists of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Presented within an ecological framework, these materials demonstrate dependence upon a wide range of physical manipulations such as bleeding and flagellation with nettles, dietary alterations including increased protein consumption, social rearrangements, verbal spells, and plant medicinals of both specific and general application. The potential effects of each contribution to the medical regime are examined and a twofold conclusion is reached: (1) that it is precisely the mix of physical and psychological elements that accounts for Nekematigi success in treating the chronic infectious diseases which...Continue Reading

References

Mar 1, 1979·The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease·N E Waxler
Apr 1, 1968·Irish Journal of Medical Science·J B Lyons
Jun 1, 1967·The American Journal of Medicine·T A Wood, E P Frenkel
May 10, 1969·The Medical Journal of Australia·R Barnes
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Oct 12, 1963·The Medical Journal of Australia·C H CAMPBELL
Feb 1, 1970·American Anthropologist·J M Ingham

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Citations

Dec 1, 1984·Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry·D Joralemon
Aug 11, 2011·Complementary Therapies in Medicine·Adrian R WhiteCharlotte Paterson
Jun 14, 2003·Philosophical Transactions. Series A, Mathematical, Physical, and Engineering Sciences·Siwan M DaviesChris S M Turney

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