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Healers
Kinds of Healers Selected AbstractsThe Suffering of the HealerNURSING FORUM, Issue 4 2003John Rowe RN TOPIC The severe distress sometimes experienced by nurses in their role as healer. PURPOSE To identify the sources that give rise to the suffering of the healer, describe the responses of healers to their suffering, and make recommendations on how to prepare nurses to cope with suffering. SOURCES The concept of the suffering of the healer is derived from the work of Erik Cassell; the framework for understanding responses to suffering from the work of Dorothy Solle. CONCLUSIONS Nurses need to be aware that practice in health care can give rise to the suffering of the healer. Nursing education and administration need to help nurses learn to cope. [source] Love Me, Hurt Me, Heal Me,Isolde Healer and Isolde Lover in Gottfried's TristanTHE GERMAN QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2009Katja Altpeter-Jones This article examines representations of women as healers and lovers in Gottfried's von Strassburg Tristan. I argue that Gottfried's casting of women,Queen Isolde, Isolde the Fair, and Tristan's mother Blanscheflur,as healers emphasizes notions of gender disparities that lie at the core of medico-scientific and literary depictions of lovesickness. Gottfried, however, in contrast to other authors whose names are associated with the Tristan and Isolde story, creates two Isoldes out of one. By carving the character of Queen Isolde out of Isolde the Fair, Gottfried ingeniously separates the hurtful and healing Queen Isolde from the lover, Isolde the Fair. In doing so, he abandons the tension that is constitutive of the depictions of unfulfilled love in Minnesang poetry where women are both adored and dreaded, bring both intense joy and unbearable misery, and carry the key to greatest physical wellbeing as well as to death. He is able, in turn, to create the experience of love,though still painful,as something based on parity and correspondence. Gottfried's subtle rewriting of the roles of Isolde the Fair and Queen Isolde especially with regard to their capacities as healers is, I argue, a key element in his conception of a novel kind of male-female relationship, commonly referred to by scholars as Tristanminne. [source] Becoming "One Who Treats": A Case Study of a Luo Healer and Her Grandson in Western KenyaANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2001Ruth Prince Using a case study of a healer and her grandson, this article shows how learning to heal is embedded in the close relationship of reciprocity and care between grandmother and grandchild in Luo society. Through shared daily life with his grandmother, the child develops social sense, respect, and compassion for people, as well as practical skills. By showing that learning to heal is not only embedded in everyday practice and in social relations, but is also a moral and emotional process, this article contributes to sociocultural theories of learning and to ethnographic accounts of childhood in Africa. [source] Antiepileptic Therapies in the Mifi Province in CameroonEPILEPSIA, Issue 4 2000P.-M. Preux Summary: Purpose: To evaluate the availability and accessibility of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in two health districts in Cameroon. Methods: The study included 33 patients with epilepsy, 26 physicians, 13 private pharmacists, eight hospital pharmacists, three distributors, and eight traditional healers. Structured questionnaires were used to assess the knowledge of the disease, treatment accessibility, the methods of prescriptions, and the availability and the frequency of delivery of drugs. Results: Only one of 33 patients did not take modern treatment; 91% of the patients were followed up by a traditional healer, and 78%, by an hospital physician. Phenobarbitone (PB) was the most frequently prescribed drug by 69% of the doctors; 54% of the physicians considered the traditional therapies to be incompatible with modern drug treatment. By pharmacists, PB was delivered regularly. Other drugs went out of stock frequently. The number of packages in stock varied significantly directly with the frequency of delivery. The mean price per package and the mean number of packages in stock were higher in the public hospital pharmacies than in the private pharmacies. A majority of healers explained epilepsy as the presence of excess foam in the abdomen. The remedies proposed were to stop foam secretion. Conclusions: Availability of AEDs was quite high, but with no strict correspondence between the rate of prescriptions and the supply of the drugs. [source] Gendering the History of Women's HealthcareGENDER & HISTORY, Issue 3 2008Monica H. Green This essay examines the genesis and continuing influence of certain core narratives in the history of western women's healthcare. Some derive from first-wave feminism's search for models of female medical practice, an agenda that paid little attention to historical context. Second-wave feminism, identifying a rift between pre-modern and modern times in terms of women's medical practices, saw the pre-modern European female healer as an exceptionally knowledgeable empiricist, uniquely responsible for women's healthcare and (particularly because of her knowledge of mechanisms to limit fertility) a victim of male persecution. Aspects of this second narrative continue subtly to effect scholarly discourse and research agendas on the history of healthcare both by and for women. This essay argues that, by seeing medical knowledge as a cultural product , something that is not static but continually re-created and sometimes contested , we can create an epistemology of how such knowledge is gendered in its genesis, dissemination and implementation. Non-western narratives drawn from history and medical anthropology are employed to show both the larger impact of the western feminist narratives and ways to reframe them. [source] Responsibilities of Criminal Justice OfficialsJOURNAL OF APPLIED PHILOSOPHY, Issue 2 2010KIMBERLEY BROWNLEE abstract In recent years, political philosophers have hotly debated whether ordinary citizens have a general pro tanto moral obligation to follow the law. Contemporary philosophers have had less to say about the same question when applied to public officials. In this paper, I consider the latter question in the morally complex context of criminal justice. I argue that criminal justice officials have no general pro tanto moral obligation to adhere to the legal dictates and lawful rules of their offices. My claim diverges not only from the commonsense view about such officials, but also from the positions standardly taken in legal theory and political science debates, which presume there is some general obligation that must arise from legal norms and be reconciled with political realities. I defend my claim by highlighting the conceptual gap between the rigid, generalised, codified rules that define a criminal justice office and the special moral responsibilities of the various moral roles that may underpin that office (such as guard, guardian, healer, educator, mediator, counsellor, advocate, and carer). After addressing four objections to my view, I consider specific contexts in which criminal justice officials are obligated not to adhere to the demands of their offices. Amongst other things, the arguments advanced in this paper raise questions about both the distribution of formal discretion in the criminal justice system and the normative validity of some of the offices that presently exist in criminal justice systems. [source] The Suffering of the HealerNURSING FORUM, Issue 4 2003John Rowe RN TOPIC The severe distress sometimes experienced by nurses in their role as healer. PURPOSE To identify the sources that give rise to the suffering of the healer, describe the responses of healers to their suffering, and make recommendations on how to prepare nurses to cope with suffering. SOURCES The concept of the suffering of the healer is derived from the work of Erik Cassell; the framework for understanding responses to suffering from the work of Dorothy Solle. CONCLUSIONS Nurses need to be aware that practice in health care can give rise to the suffering of the healer. Nursing education and administration need to help nurses learn to cope. [source] Becoming "One Who Treats": A Case Study of a Luo Healer and Her Grandson in Western KenyaANTHROPOLOGY & EDUCATION QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2001Ruth Prince Using a case study of a healer and her grandson, this article shows how learning to heal is embedded in the close relationship of reciprocity and care between grandmother and grandchild in Luo society. Through shared daily life with his grandmother, the child develops social sense, respect, and compassion for people, as well as practical skills. By showing that learning to heal is not only embedded in everyday practice and in social relations, but is also a moral and emotional process, this article contributes to sociocultural theories of learning and to ethnographic accounts of childhood in Africa. [source] Patient Preparation and Perceived Outcomes of Spiritist Healing in BrazilANTHROPOLOGY OF CONSCIOUSNESS, Issue 1 2004Darrell Lynch This paper examines patient preparation and perceived outcomes of treatment given by the popular Brazilian Spiritist healer, Dr. Fritz. The data utilized include the results of 40 personal interviews of Spiritist patients conducted by the author during a seven month stay in Fortaleza, Brazil, plus subsequent follow-up information. The study finds that a clear majority of the patients expressed belief that their treatments were successful. Certain trends in the types of illnesses for which the Spiritist surgeries appear to have greater success are also suggested. The author stresses the strength, sophistication, and appropriateness of the healing system in its cultural context and the extensive use of powerful symbolism in both the ritual preparations and the surgeries themselves as key factors in the healing system's success. The findings likewise have clear theoretical implications for the current literature on symbolic healing systems in general. [source] Saka, an ancestral possession: MalaysiaASIA-PACIFIC PSYCHIATRY, Issue 3 2010Hasanah Che Ismail MBBS MPM Abstract This report illustrates a culture-bound disorder known as "saka" in the local population of Kelantan, as well as other states in Malaysia. It is a form of possession by the spirit of a deceased ancestor who was once a traditional healer or shaman. While in a dissociative state, the patient introduced a 7 × 3,4 cm wooden stick precisely into his inferior rectus muscle, in an attempt to identify with a blind ancestor who showed his presence momentarily and specifically to the patient. The stick remained hidden to ophthalmologists for 17 days and during this period the patient developed right orbital cellulitis, bilateral cavernous sinus thrombosis and sepsis. The stick was identified after the family took the patient home for cultural healing rites to be performed. The patient's altered behavior resolved with the removal of the stick and he returned to his premorbid personality and functioning without psychotropic medication. To date, saka has not been reported in any peer-reviewed medical journal. [source] Community Leader Education to Increase Epilepsy Attendance at Clinics in Epworth, ZimbabweEPILEPSIA, Issue 8 2000D. E. Ball Summary: Objective: To determine whether educating community leaders about epilepsy would lead to an increase in epilepsy cases being diagnosed and treated at primary health centers. Methods: This was a single-arm cohort study performed in Epworth, a periurban township outside Harare, Zimbabwe. The subjects were Epworth community leaders (Local Board members, teachers, nurses, police officers, traditional healers, prophets). Educational workshops were given on epilepsy, its cause, and its management, and the number of new epilepsy cases on local primary health clinic registers 6 months after the workshops was measured. Results: Six new cases were recorded, all among patients previously diagnosed with epilepsy. This was a significant increase (p = 0.02) compared with the null hypothesis. Conclusion: Although there was a significant increase in new cases, these did not represent newly diagnosed patients. Significant prejudice within the community may still prevent identified patients with epilepsy from seeking treatment. Alternative methods must be sought to increase the awareness of epilepsy within low-income communities and to reach "hidden" people with epilepsy. [source] Antiepileptic Therapies in the Mifi Province in CameroonEPILEPSIA, Issue 4 2000P.-M. Preux Summary: Purpose: To evaluate the availability and accessibility of antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) in two health districts in Cameroon. Methods: The study included 33 patients with epilepsy, 26 physicians, 13 private pharmacists, eight hospital pharmacists, three distributors, and eight traditional healers. Structured questionnaires were used to assess the knowledge of the disease, treatment accessibility, the methods of prescriptions, and the availability and the frequency of delivery of drugs. Results: Only one of 33 patients did not take modern treatment; 91% of the patients were followed up by a traditional healer, and 78%, by an hospital physician. Phenobarbitone (PB) was the most frequently prescribed drug by 69% of the doctors; 54% of the physicians considered the traditional therapies to be incompatible with modern drug treatment. By pharmacists, PB was delivered regularly. Other drugs went out of stock frequently. The number of packages in stock varied significantly directly with the frequency of delivery. The mean price per package and the mean number of packages in stock were higher in the public hospital pharmacies than in the private pharmacies. A majority of healers explained epilepsy as the presence of excess foam in the abdomen. The remedies proposed were to stop foam secretion. Conclusions: Availability of AEDs was quite high, but with no strict correspondence between the rate of prescriptions and the supply of the drugs. [source] The effects of traumatic experiences on the infant,mother relationship in the former war zones of central Mozambique: The case of madzawde in GorongosaINFANT MENTAL HEALTH JOURNAL, Issue 5 2003Victor Igreja This article addresses the ways in which years of war and periods of serious drought have affected the cultural representations of the populations in Gorongosa District, Mozambique. In the wake of these events different cultural and historical representations have been disrupted, leaving the members of these communities with fragmented protective and resilience factors to cope effectively. Emphasis is placed on the disruption of madzawde, a mechanism that regulates the relationship between the child (one to two years of life) and the mother, and the family in general. The war, aggravated by famine, prevented the populations from performing this child-rearing practice. Nearly a decade after the war ended, the posttraumatic effects of this disruption are still being observed both by traditional healers and health-care workers at the district hospital. The results suggest that this disruption is affecting and compromising the development of the child and the physical and psychological health of the mother. An in-depth understanding of this level of trauma and posttraumatic effects is instrumental in making a culturally sensitive diagnosis and in developing effective intervention strategies based on local knowledge that has not been entirely lost but is nonetheless being questioned. ©2003 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health. [source] The Socio-Cultural Context of Drug Use and Implications for Drug PolicyINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, Issue 169 2001Molly Charles Cultural diversity in India has nurtured the use of mind-altering substances over centuries, with-out causing any great alarm about drug abuse. This paper, using research conducted by the authors and other secondary data, attempts to present socio-cultural-religious, functional patterns of drug use in the country and examines some of the factors responsible for the drastic changes that have occurred since the 1980s. Specifically, it points out that the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, took the responsibility of drug abuse control away from the community to the near-defunct legal establishment; that by criminalising socio-religious-cultural-recreational use of opium and cannabis, it has promoted the pro-liferation of alcohol, heroin, and other moreharmful pharmaceutical drugs; that it has given a new lease of life to organised crime syndicates; and that denial of access to low cost, accessible health care at the hands of traditional healers is an unintended consequence needing immediate rectification. It makes certain policy recommendations to the UN bodies, their member states and to policy makers in India in particular. [source] Medicinal plants of Erute county, Lira district, Uganda with particular reference to their conservationAFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY, Issue 2 2010Christine Oryema Abstract A medicinal plant study was carried out in eighteen parishes and 54 villages of Erute county, Lira district, Uganda. Parishes and villages were selected using stratified random sampling techniques. Questionnaires, interviews and discussions with the local people were used to obtain information on the names of the plants, their medicinal uses and conservation methods. The number of the medicinal plants species used was 180 belonging to 144 genera and 57 families of flowering plants. The major families recorded for medicinal purpose included Fabaceae (37 species), Asteraceae (26 species), Euphorbiaceae (eleven species), Vitaceae (eight species), Verbenaceae (seven species), Poaceae (six species), Solanaceae (five species), and Rubiaceae (four species). There is a need for putting in place measures to conserve these plants. Unfortunately, most of the healers or users were not interested in cultivation of the plants. The situation could worsen with the social changes and demand for land for agriculture in the district. Résumé Nous avons réalisé une étude des plantes médicinales dans 18 paroisses et 54 villages du Comté d'Erute, dans le district de Lira, en Ouganda. Paroisses et villages furent sélectionnés au moyen de techniques d'échantillonnage au hasard stratifié. On a eu recours à des questionnaires, des interviews et des discussions avec les populations locales pour obtenir des informations sur le nom des plantes, leur utilisation médicinale et les méthodes de conservation. Il y avait 180 plantes médicinales appartenant à 144 genres et à 57 familles de plantes à fleurs. Les principales familles rapportées dans le domaine médicinal comprenaient les Fabaceae (37 espèces), les Asteraceae (26 espèces), les Euphorbiaceae (11 espèces), les Vitaceae (8 espèces), les Verbenaceae (7 espèces), les Poaceae (6 espèces), les Solanaceae (5 espèces), et les Rubiaceae (4 espèces). Il faut instaurer des mesures pour conserver ces plantes. Malheureusement, la plupart des guérisseurs ou des utilisateurs n'étaient pas intéressés par la culture de ces plantes. La situation pourrait empirer en raison des changements sociaux et de la demande de terres pour l'agriculture dans ce district. [source] Intellectual Disability in the Context of a South African PopulationJOURNAL OF POLICY AND PRACTICE IN INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES, Issue 2 2008Jennifer Kromberg Abstract, Childhood disabilities, including intellectual disabilities (ID), are thought to occur in 5,17% of children in developing countries around the world. In order to identify and describe the childhood disabilities occurring in a rural South African population, as well as the context in which they occur, a study was carried out in the Bushbuckridge district in the poor northeast part of the country. Altogether, 6,692 children were screened in their homes in eight villages using the Ten Questions questionnaire. This questionnaire was used by local-trained field-workers in interviews with mothers and other carers, to screen children for five disorders (viz., intellectual, hearing, visual and movement disorders, and epilepsy). Altogether, 722 (10.8% of the total sample) children, who screened positive, were examined at clinics in their villages by a pediatrician for diagnostic, treatment, and referral purposes. In addition, 100 traditional healers in the district were interviewed with a specially designed schedule of questions to assess their attitudes toward disabilities and their management of affected children. The results showed that 291 (4.3%) children had at least one of the five disabilities. ID occurred in 3.6%, epilepsy in 0.7%, visual disorders in 0.5%, movement disorders in 0.5%, and hearing disorders in 0.3%. More boys than girls with hearing disorders were receiving special education. Many of the affected children were not receiving treatment or education, resulting in a reduction in their quality of life. Traditional healers were attempting to treat epilepsy and seldom referred affected children to hospital, although effective treatment was available there. Genetic factors were involved in about half the conditions, but genetic services were negligible. Appropriate health, diagnostic, treatment, educational, and supportive services are required for children with disabilities, and awareness of their needs and the resources to meet them should be increased in this community. [source] Courage to lead: A call to actionLEADER TO LEADER, Issue 34 2004Frances Hesselbein Courageous leaders are healers and unifiers. [source] Traditional Healing and Its Discontents: Efficacy and Traditional Therapies of Neuropsychiatric Disorders in BaliMEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 1 2004Robert Bush Lemelson In a discussion of patients suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and/or Tourettes's Syndrome (TS), in Bali, Indonesia, traditional healing and psychiatric perspectives are used to highlight the power and weakness of each to treat these conditions. Given they are drawn from the same culture, should not indigenous explanatory models provide meaning and be more efficacious at relieving the suffering of people with OCD and TS-like symptoms? What if they provide an understandable meaning for patients but these meanings have no efficacy? Ethnographic data on Balinese models for illness are presented. Multiple data sources were used to frame the complex Balinese traditional healing systems. Forty patients were interviewed regarding their utilization of traditional healers, and healers were observed treating patients and interviewed regarding their treatment regimens and explanatory models. Traditional explanatory models for illness provide an understandable and integrated system of meaning for these disorders but are not successful in relieving symptomatology. Neurobiological approaches, traditional healing, and ethnographic methods are compared and contrasted to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of each in relation to issues of exegesis and efficacy, [obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette's Syndrome, traditional healing, Indonesia] [source] Using Home Gardens to Decipher Health and Healing in the Andes.MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2003Ruthbeth Finerman Home gardens are a pervasive component of Andean agricultural systems, but have been ignored in anthropological and agronomic research. Recent research in the indigenous community of Saraguro, Ecuador, employed a combination of in-depth interviews, free-listing, videotaped walk-throughs, and mapping to explore the role of home gardens, which are established and controlled by women. Findings reveal that, although gardens offer multiple benefits, they are overwhelmingly devoted to the cultivation of medicinal plants, operating as de facto medicine cabinets that supply women with most of the resources they need to treat family illnesses. Results also suggest that the natural history of home gardens mirrors transformations within the family, and that Saraguro women study the contents of their neighbors' gardens, using this knowledge as a foundation for deciphering the owners' economic and health status. New threats to the sustainability of home gardens threaten the foundation of Saraguro's ethnomedical system and women's authority in the home and community. [ethnobotany, gardens, Ecuador, women healers, family health] [source] African Independent Churches in Mozambique: Healing the Afflictions of InequalityMEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2002James Pfeiffer The recent explosive proliferation of African Independent Churches (AICs) in central Mozambique coincided with rapid growth of economic disparity in the 1990s produced by privatization, cuts in government services, and arrival of foreign aid promoted by Mozambique's World Bank/International Monetary Fund Structural Adjustment Program. Drawing on ethnographic research in the city of Chimoio, this article argues that growing inequality has led to declining social cohesion, heightened individual competition, fear of interpersonal violence, and intensified conflict between spouses in poor families. This perilous social environment finds expression in heightened fears of witchcraft, sorcery, and avenging spirits, which are often blamed in Shona ideology for reproductive health problems. Many women with sick children or suffering from infertility turn to AICs for treatment because traditional healers are increasingly viewed as dangerous and too expensive. The AICs invoke the "Holy Spirit" to exorcise malevolent agents and then provide a community of mutual aid and ongoing protection against spirit threats. [Mozambique, social inequality, African Independent Churches, intrahousehold, health] [source] Identity and Healing in Three Navajo Religious Traditions: Sa'ah Naagháí Bik'eh HózhoMEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2000Elizabeth L. Lewton In this article, we elucidate how the Navajo synthetic principle Saah Naagháí Bik'eh Hózho (SNBH) is understood, demonstrated, and elaborated in three different Navajo healing traditions. We conducted interviews with Navajo healers and their patients affiliated with Traditional Navajo religion, the Native American Church, and Pentecostal Christianity. Their narratives provide access to cultural themes of identity and healing that invoke elements of SNBH. SNBH specifies that the conditions for health and well-being are harmony within and connection to the physical/spiritual world. Specifically, each religious healing tradition encourages affective engagement, proper family relations, an understanding of one's cultural and spiritual histories, and the use of kinship terms to establish affective bonds with one's family and with the spiritual world. People's relationships within this common behavioral environment are integral to their self-orientations, to their identities as Navajos, and to the therapeutic process. The disruption and restoration of these relationships constitute an important affective dimension in Navajo distress and healing. [Navajos, identity, religion, healing, health] [source] Casting Out Demons: The Native Anthropologist and Healing in the HomelandNORTH AMERICAN DIALOGUE (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2007Tanya L. Ceja-Zamarripa This article addresses academic and social costs experienced by anthropologists studying their own ethnic group. It explores how one "native" anthropologist navigates her roles as ethnographer and insider while researching curanderismo, a religiously inflected form of ethnomedicine within increasingly secular and commercialized Mexican American urban spheres. Is academic credibility weakened because the anthropologist shares the cultural history of her/his informants? When your community entrusts you with their spiritual, emotional and social woes, do they see you as ethnographer, insider, or both? To be privy to the ritual knowledge and practices of healers and the individual struggles of clients to find respite from pain is a great responsibility as curanderismo has often been pathologized by anthropology as a "primitive" tradition used only by the ignorant and backward. Given this history, the native anthropologist must find a way to manage allegiance to her cultural as well as academic community. I suggest that doing "native" research is its own form of "exorcism," casting out demons in a field that often silences native voices and holds native anthropology in lower esteem. [source] Female saints and the practice of Islam in Sylhet, BangladeshAMERICAN ETHNOLOGIST, Issue 3 2008ALYSON CALLAN ABSTRACT Unlike the saintly power of her male counterpart, which is conceived as an attribute of the individual, the spiritual power of the female saint in Sylhet, Bangladesh, is attributed to a supernatural entity that is temporarily affiliated with her. This difference cannot simply be regarded as an example of gendered domains of religious practice, in which men study the Qu'ran and women traffic with spirits, as in Sylhet, male healers practice with the aid of spirits. I describe how one woman's saintly status allowed her to resist the virilocal rule of residence, a patriarchal structure that is said to underpin women's subordinate position in Bangladesh. Her story demonstrates that Islam cannot be conflated with patriarchy and that it may support women's emancipation from structures of male authority. The meaning of Islam is context dependent and revised through practice. [Islam, gender, agency, sainthood, Bangladesh, spirit possession, healing] [source] The Suffering of the HealerNURSING FORUM, Issue 4 2003John Rowe RN TOPIC The severe distress sometimes experienced by nurses in their role as healer. PURPOSE To identify the sources that give rise to the suffering of the healer, describe the responses of healers to their suffering, and make recommendations on how to prepare nurses to cope with suffering. SOURCES The concept of the suffering of the healer is derived from the work of Erik Cassell; the framework for understanding responses to suffering from the work of Dorothy Solle. CONCLUSIONS Nurses need to be aware that practice in health care can give rise to the suffering of the healer. Nursing education and administration need to help nurses learn to cope. [source] Ngongas and ecology: on having a worldviewOIKOS, Issue 1 2001Joel S. Brown Ngongas provide a metaphor for some of the opportunities and challenges facing the science of ecology and evolution. Ngongas, the traditional healers of the Shona culture, Zimbabwe, fail in the delivery of quality health by today's standards. Their outdated worldview makes most health related issues seem more complicated and more multi-factorial than when viewed through the worldviews of modern medicine. With the wrong worldview, one can work very hard, be very bright and dedicated, and still be ineffective. With the right worldview, one can work much less hard and still be extremely effective. As ecologists, we should be opinionated and possess clearly articulated worldviews for filtering and interpreting information. As ecologists we are also a bit like ngongas , we often fail to provide answers for society's ecological questions and problems, and we excuse ourselves with a belief that ecological systems are too complex and have too many factors. Unlike ngongas, this invites us to pay a lot of attention to promoting and assessing competing worldviews. We should be open-minded to the anomalies in our worldview and the successes of alternative viewpoints. As an admitted ecological ngonga, I discuss the worldview I use in my own research: the Optimization Research Program, a Darwinian research program that uses game theory to conceptualize and understand ecological systems. I use it illustrate how worldviews can synthesize disparate ideas. (I use kin selection and reciprocal altruism as examples.) I use it to show how new ideas and predictions can be generated. (I use root competition in plants and the possibility that increased crop yield may be forthcoming from knowledge of this game.) [source] Wound healing effects of noni (Morinda citrifolia L.) leaves: a mechanism involving its PDGF/A2A receptor ligand binding and promotion of wound closurePHYTOTHERAPY RESEARCH, Issue 10 2010Afa Palu Abstract Morinda citrifolia L. (Rubiaceae) commonly known as noni, has been used in Polynesia by traditional healers for the treatment of cuts, bruises and wounds. Our objective was to investigate the wound-healing mechanisms of the noni leaf. The investigations of its wound-healing mechanisms were carried out using fresh noni leaf juice (NLJ), noni leaf ethanol extract (NLEE) and its methanol (MFEE) and hexane (HFEE) fractions on the PDGF and A2A receptors in vitro and topically in mice. Fresh noni leaf juice showed significant affinity to PDGF receptors, and displayed 166% binding inhibition of the ligand binding to its receptors, while at the same concentration, it only had 7% inhibition of the ligand binding to the A2A receptors. NLEE, HFEE and MFEE showed significant affinity to A2A receptors, concentration dependently, with IC50 values of 34.1, 42.9 and 86.7,,g/mL, respectively. However, MFEE significantly increased wound closure and reduced the half closure time in mice with a CT50 of 5.4 ± 0.2 days compared with control (p < 0.05). These results suggest that noni leaf significantly accelerated wound healing in mice via its ligand binding to the PDGF and A2A receptors as its probable mechanisms of wound-healing and also support its traditional usage for wound-healing in Polynesia. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The antidiarrhoeal activity of Alchornea cordifolia leaf extractPHYTOTHERAPY RESEARCH, Issue 11 2004Gabriel A. Agbor Abstract Diarrhoea is a public health problem in developing countries. It is therefore important and useful to identify plants with antidiarrhoeal activity. Alchornea cordifolia is quoted by many traditional healers as a plant with this activity. The antidiarrhoeal activity of its leaf extract was investigated against castor oil induced diarrhoea in mice, using morphine as the standard reference drug. A signi,cant (p < 0.01) dose related (100 mg/kg, 200 mg/kg, 400 mg/kg, 800 mg/kg) antidiarrhoeal activity of A. cordifolia leaf ethanol extract was observed with 800 mg/kg extract being the most effective. It delayed mouse intestinal transit accelerated by castor oil, inhibited the production of diarrhoeal faeces and modi,ed the ,uid and electrolyte transport across the colonic mucosa when administered intraluminally. Phytochemical screening revealed the presence of tannins and ,avonoids which may account for the increased colonic water and electrolyte reabsorption, a mechanism suggested for the antidiarrhoeal activity of A. cordifolia. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] The effect of capsaicin on blood glucose, plasma insulin levels and insulin binding in dog modelsPHYTOTHERAPY RESEARCH, Issue 5 2001I. Tolan Abstract Capsicum frutescens has been used to treat diabetes mellitus by traditional healers in Jamaica. This study was designed to identify any hypoglycaemic principle(s) and to determine the mechanism of action. Purification experiments employing thin layer chromatography (TLC) and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) led to the extraction of the active principle, capsaicin. Capsaicin caused a decrease in blood glucose levels of 4.91,±,0.52 (n,=,6),mmol/dL versus 6.40,±,0.13,mmol/dL (n,=,6) for the control (p,<,0.05) at the 2.5,h time interval when the oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT) was performed on dogs treated with capsaicin and compared with the control. Plasma insulin levels measured at the 2.5,h time interval showed that there was an increase in plasma insulin levels of 5.78,±,0.76,µIU/mL (n,=,6) for the capsaicin treated dogs versus 3.70,±,0.43,µIU/mL (n,=,10) for the control (p,<,0.05). Insulin receptor studies, using a modification of the method of Gambhir et al. done on monocytes obtained from blood at the 2.5,h time interval showed that there was a decrease in the percentage receptor binding for the capsaicin treated dogs when compared with the control. Insulin affinity results showed that there was a decrease of 2.4,×,10,4 in monocytes for the capsaicin treated dogs versus 8.77,×,10,4 for the control (p,<,0.05). Also, insulin receptor calculations showed a decrease in number, 2.63,×,108,±,5.73,×,107, compared with 8.77,×,108,±,1.47,×,108 for the control. In conclusion it can be stated that capsaicin is responsible for the hypoglycaemic episodes seen in the dogs and that it also causes an increase in insulin secretion which leads to a reduction of insulin binding on the insulin receptors. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Contrasting Concepts of Depression in Uganda: Implications for Service Delivery in a Multicultural ContextAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY, Issue 2 2009Laura R. Johnson Depression is a rising public health concern worldwide. Understanding how people conceptualize depression within and across cultures is crucial to effective treatment in a global environment. In this article, we highlight the importance of considering both lay and professional perspectives when developing a culturally competent and contextually relevant model for service delivery. We conducted interviews with 246 Ugandan adults to elicit their explanatory belief models (EMs) about the nature of depression, its causes, social meanings, effects, help seeking, and treatment. Interviews were transcribed, content analyzed, and coded. We compared EMs of community members (n = 135) to those of professional practitioners (n = 111), whom we further categorized into traditional healers, primary care providers, and mental health professionals. We found significant differences between lay and professional EMs and between 3 types of professionals. Contrary to our expectations, lay concepts did not overlap more with traditional healers than with other professional EMs. We discuss the diverse concepts of depression in Uganda, the nature of group differences, and implications for service delivery and treatment. [source] Medicine and Religion in Ancient EgyptRELIGION COMPASS (ELECTRONIC), Issue 1 2007Laura M. Zucconi Seminal works on ancient Egyptian medicine tend to treat the field as distinct from religious practices, often fixating on the medical papyri as exemplifying either rational or magical treatments. Refocusing the study towards the ancient Egyptian conceptions of physiology and disease etiology shows that their medical practices integrated religious concepts such as maat (balance) and heka (power). Therapeutic measures and titles for healers, swnw, wab priest, and sau, further underscored the physical interchange between the mortal and divine worlds for the ancient Egyptians. [source] | |||||||||||||||||||