Traditional medicine

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As a term, traditional medicine encompasses numerous methods of folk medicine that are culturally anchored and handed down in various countries and regions of the world, sometimes in contrast to western, scientific medicine ( biomedicine ). The World Health Organization (WHO) defines traditional medicine as “knowledge, skills and methods based on indigenous beliefs, beliefs and experiences of different cultures that are used to treat and prevent diseases.” In some African and Asian countries , basic care is based on up to 80 percent of the population rely on traditional medicine. However, the WHO points out that "improper use of traditional medicine or practices" can be harmful and that "further research is needed to ensure the therapeutic effectiveness and safety" of the practices and herbal preparations. The WHO plans to integrate the procedures in its member states into the respective national health systems, but to establish regulations for safety and quality.

According to a survey by the WHO in 2005, a third of the world's population has no access to modern Western medicine and therefore continues to rely on traditional practitioners for their health care.

Well-known traditional medicines are Ayurveda , Unani , Traditional Thai Medicine , Traditional Vietnamese Medicine , Traditional Chinese Medicine , Traditional Japanese Medicine , Traditional Korean Medicine , Traditional African Medicine ( Muti in southern Africa ) and Traditional European Medicine . Traditional medicine can also include formalized elements of folk medicine, especially home remedies used by lay people .

Some systems such as traditional Chinese medicine (namely acupuncture ), Ayurveda, or Tibetan medicine or their current variants are popular components of natural medicine as well as complementary and alternative medicine in western industrialized countries .

Traditional medicine is the subject of research in ethnobotany , ethnomedicine , and medical ethnology . The medical knowledge handed down from locally rooted, scriptless cultures is often summarized under the more general term traditional knowledge .

History of traditional medicine

Research into traditional medicine is primarily based on the analysis of traditional documents and archaeological finds. With formulations set down in writing, it is sometimes very difficult to find out which ingredients were actually used and what the proportions were. Many of the plants used in the Egyptian papyri cannot be clearly identified, and this also applies to a certain extent to the writings of Hildegard von Bingen from the middle of the 12th century. In the case of archaeological finds, the discovered remedies can be analyzed, but speculation may have to be made about the use (indication). In the case of healing methods that have been handed down orally, it is very difficult to identify whether it is actually a tradition or whether it is perhaps a very new phenomenon in folk medicine.

The first written evidence of the study and regular use of plants has been preserved as early as 5000 years ago in the form of cuneiform writing on clay tablets from Sumer . Ancient Egyptian medicine (cf. Papyrus Edwin Smith , Papyrus Ebers , Papyrus Hearst ) used various herbs for medicinal purposes, with magic playing a very important role. In the Pentateuch of the Bible , the cultivation and use of herbs for kashrut is described. Also at Passover are bitter herbs , namely maror prescribed.

Ancient Indian herbalists such as Charaka and Sushruta already describe many of the herbs and minerals used in Ayurveda . The first Chinese herbal book was the Shen Nong Cao Jing during the Han period, but it goes back to much earlier sources such as the Yao Xing Lun (Treatise on the Nature of Medicinal Herbs) from the Tang period.

The ancient Greek doctors were able to build on the knowledge from Babylon and Egypt or even went there for training. Greek collections on the knowledge of herbs at that time come from the Pythagoreans , Hippocrates of Kos , Aristotle , Theophrastus and, in Roman times, from Pedanios Dioscurides and Galenus of Pergamon . Many of these writings were important in university medicine in Europe until the early modern period .

Roman authors such as Pliny the Elder , Celsus and Pedanios Dioscurides concluded the De Materia Medica by the herbalist Krateuas , the doctor of Mithridates VI. (Pontos) King of Pontos (120–63 BC) a.

In Byzantium, numerous elements of ancient Greek medicine were preserved with Byzantine medicine after the collapse of Western Rome and the Great Migration. Herbalism was also an essential element here. A special feature is the hospital system developed there . The connections to other lines of the development of medicine also arose through the changeful history of the Byzantine Empire , because the empire at times extended almost around the whole Mediterranean.

De materia medica has been translated into several languages, including Turkish, Arabic and Jewish terms over the centuries.

The oldest preserved early medieval Franconian spring is the Lorsch Pharmacopoeia , which was created around 795. It is attributed to Aurelius Aesculapius (7th century), the Physica Plinii and Byzantine sources , among others . Latin manuscripts of the Materia Medica were linked to the Latin herbal book of Apuleius Platonicus ( Herbarium Apuleii Platonici ) and inserted into the Anglo-Saxon Codex Cotton Vitellius C.III.

In England in the 9th century, Bald's Leechbook was a collection of Anglo-Saxon recipes, some of which were heavily influenced by Mediterranean sources, but also included magic.

Early Greek and Roman summaries became the core of European medical theory . They were translated by the Persian Rhazes (Rāzi, 865–925) and the Jew Maimonides . Translations of Greek medical manuals and manuscripts into Arabic took place in the eighth and ninth centuries (AD). Arabic medicine arose out of the conflict between the magical medicine of the Bedouins and the Arabic translations of Hellenic and Ayurvedic medical traditions.

Spanish medicine was influenced by the Arabs (in Spain from 711 to 1492). Islamic doctors and botanists such as Abū Hanīfa Ahmad ibn Dāwūd ad Dinawari and Ibn al-Baitar significantly expanded their previous medical knowledge.

The most famous Arabic treatise was Avicenna's Canon of Medicine , an early pharmacology based on the writings of Galenus, which introduced the method of clinical examination. This canon was translated into Latin in Toledo in the 12th century and has remained a standard work of medical education in Europe until modern times. The Unani -Medicine based on this canon .

Translations of the early Roman-Greek summaries were made by Hieronymus Bock and the other fathers of botany , beginning with the Garden of Health in the late 15th century. Bock's book of herbs, under the name Historia Pemptades by Rembert Dodoens (1517-1585) into Dutch and translated from Dutch into English by Carolus Clusius (1526-1609), was published by Henry Lyte in 1578 as A Nievve Herball . From this created John Gerard (1545-1612) Herball or General Historie of Plantes . Each of these works linked existing texts with new additions. 44 of the drugs , solvents , aromatic substances and ointment bases that Dioscurides mentioned are still listed in the official pharmacopoeia. With the Puritans , Gerard's work came to America and influenced American folk medicine there .

Francisco Hernandez de Toledo , physician to King Philip II of Spain , was in Mexico from 1571 to 1577 to gain knowledge and then wrote the Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus , of which many versions have been published, such as that of Francisco Ximénez . Both Hernandez and Ximenez added findings from folk medicine of the Aztecs to European ideas such as 'warm', 'cold' and 'moist' (see humoral pathology ). However, it is not known whether the Aztecs used these categories. Juan de Esteyneffer's Florilegio medicinal de todas las enfermedas summarized European texts and added 33 Mexican plants. Martín de la Cruz wrote a book of herbs in Nahuatl that was translated into Latin by Juan Badiano as Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis or Codex Barberini and dedicated to Charles V (HRR) of Spain in 1552. Obviously, it was written in a hurry and is influenced by the 30 years of European rule. Fray Bernardino de Sahagún used methods of ethnography to create his codices, which were published as Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Espana in 1793. Castore Durante published his Herbario Nuovo in 1585. In it he described medicinal plants from Europe, the East Indies and the West Indies. The book was translated into German in 1609. Italian editions followed over the next century.

Traditional medicine and society

Origin and tradition

Traditional medicine is generally transmitted orally within a community, family, or between individuals before disappearing. Within a given culture, fragments of knowledge may exist with many individuals or with individuals who have a role as healer such as B. can be taken, collected and used as shamans or midwives.

There are three different reasons for the role of the healer:

  • their own beliefs,
  • the success of their activity,
  • the belief of the community

If the claims of traditional medicine are rejected by culture over time, it will continue to be used by three types of followers

  • those who experienced her socialization with her and are permanently attached to her
  • Temporary followers who turn to traditional medicine in times of crisis and
  • those who only accept individual aspects, but not the whole.

The elements of traditional medicine found in the respective culture are not necessarily a closed system and can be contradicting themselves.

Realization of the knowledge of traditional medicine

A systematic investigation and description of the effects of substances is already attributed to the Chinese Shen Nong . These can also be substances that have already been used. The results of such investigations are given in this case in the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing .

Observation of animal behavior

  • Yarrow is eaten by sheep in worm diseases and also fed by shepherds
  • Monkeys have a fairly extensive system of self-medication.

Several traditions intermingle in the Caribbean, namely:

  • those of the inhabitants at the time of the "discovery"
  • those from Europe
  • those from Africa through the slave trade

The remedies in the Caribbean allow several classifications:

  • Certain well-known European medicinal herbs, introduced by the Spanish colonists and still widely cultivated,
  • Indigenous wild and cultivated herbs, the use of which has been adopted by the indigenous population
  • Ornamental and other plants whose medicinal properties have been recognized without any historical background.

Traditional medicine and law

Property rights can be asserted on the healing knowledge of the locals. Its use without prior consent or compensation can be considered ' biopiracy '. Rules for this were given in the Convention on Biological Diversity (especially Article 8) and the Nagoya Protocol ).

Traditional medicine and women

Female folk knowledge, such as that of the herbalist or wise women, was often undocumented in addition to the texts mentioned above.

Midwives were and are also an important pillar of health care. In traditional medicine, obstetrics was mostly a woman's responsibility, as was contraception and abortion . Nevertheless, there were extensive academic treatises on gynecology in the school of Salerno as early as the 12th century (cf. Trotula ).

Linnda R. Caporael provides an explanation for the connection between witchcraft and midwives in the early modern period. She compares the effects of ergot on perceptions of ergotism and LSD consumption with the statements of witches and establishes a connection between weather conditions favorable for the development of ergot infestation and the Salem witch trials . Ergot, if used properly, was an obstetric aid.

Problems of Traditional Medicine

  • Differentiation from placebo : The accusation of the placebo effect of methods of traditional medicine is compared with experiences about the effectiveness of placebo or nocebo effects . The term placebo has a negative connotation.
  • Differentiation from popular belief : Popular belief often turns into superstition .
  • The use of rare plants: The problem of the use of rare medicinal plants is addressed by the horticultural culture of wild plants . The concentration of active substances in wild plants can, however, differ greatly from cultivated species. The Nagoya Protocol was negotiated as the major drug manufacturers looking for new drugs became a major threat here .
  • The use of endangered species: Sometimes traditional medicine makes use of endangered species , such as B. those of the lory in Southeast Asia, which are mentioned on the red list of endangered species .

Web links

Single references

  1. ↑ Fact sheet no. 134: Traditional medicine ". ( Memento of March 2, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) World Health Organization. December 1, 2008
  2. ^ Gerard Bodeker, CK Ong: World Health Organization Global Atlas of Traditional, Complementary, and Alternative Medicine . World Health Organization, 2005, ISBN 978-92-4-156286-7, (accessed July 7, 2013).
  3. ↑ Girish Dwivedi, Shridhar Dwivedi (2007). "History of Medicine: Sushruta - the Clinician - Teacher par Excellence" (PDF). National Informatics Center
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  11. ^ Diane Boulanger (2002), "The Islamic Contribution to Science, Mathematics and Technology", OISE Papers, in STSE Education, Vol. 3
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  18. ↑ Michel S. Laguerre: Afro-Caribbean folk medicine. Bergin & Garvey, New York 1987, ISBN 0-89789-113-9
  19. ↑ Ivona Foitova (Ph. D 2003): Host-parasite relationship and self-medication in the wild orangutan of Northern Sumatra. Brno University, Brno, Czech Republic.
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  22. ^ Ergotism: The Satan Loosed in Salem, 1976, Science, 192, pp. 21-26.
  23. ^ Matthias Breidert, Karl Hofbauer: Placebo - misunderstandings and prejudices . In: Deutsches Ärzteblatt . 106th year, no. 46 , November 2009, p. 751–756 ( aerzteblatt.de [accessed March 9, 2018]).
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