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The case illustrates the dangers of wood ash even though it appears harmless. People believe that this folklore medicine remedy provides relief of pain, but it is obviously an inappropriate preparation and a risky procedure.
Blood banking is still plagued with the double problem of an inadequate supply of donors and inappropriate ordering policies by many physicians. Attempts to change these conditions by educational programs have met with only limited success. This paper lists and discusses many of the folklore beliefs attributed to blood and shows that many of these primitive beliefs still can be found today. Both donors and physicians, being human, may be influenced by these myths, many of which couple blood with the soul or with a vital essence in the blood. The reluctance to donate and the use of blood as a tonic rather than a therapeutic medium may both be based on a carryover of some of these beliefs. If this thesis is correct, education of both the physician and donor must be based as much on a phychotherapeutic approach to erase firmly established misconceptions as on a strict scientific educatory method.
The authors have gathered and analyzed the visual hallucinations described in the mid- to late-19th century from archived medical records of the former psychiatric hospital "Osservanza" in Imola, northern Italy. Though the investigation was not intended as a statistical survey, the principal aim being to classify the hallucinations according to their outward characteristics, the authors have tried to locate the possible sources of these phenomena in folklore and religious iconography.
Smallpox was one of the most dreadful epidemic diseases in Korea until the early twentieth century. In the Chosŏn period, smallpox came to prevail more frequently and vigorously, and many people died of the disease. To cope with smallpox, the society of Chosŏn had various modes of measures, though they were not always effective, which included the government's rituals, medical men's prescriptions, and folk's recipes. Among various responses to smallpox, the recipes of folklore seem to be very interesting. While attitude toward other contagious diseases (e.g., typhoid fever, or malaria) mainly consisted of exorcism, smallpox was believed to be the passage of the smallpox deity. Sonnim (which means guest), through the body of patient for certain time span, and gods of smallpox were treated hospitably. This attitude toward smallpox was deeply rooted in Korean shamanism, and partly in the natural history of the disease. From 1876 smallpox vaccination was reintroduced and practiced. There were, however, a lot of difficulties in practice of vaccination due to distrust and prejudice. and traditional dealings with smallpox, in spite of vaccination, didn't disappear even after the Japanese compulsory occupation.
Investigation of the anatomy of the mermaid and of mermaid lore has revealed a tangled web of stories, sightings and specimens of the most diverse nature, extending worldwide into the realms of folklore and legend, zoology and cryptozoology, anatomy, physiology, radiography and folk medicine, ethnography, social history and the history of science. The stereotype we know as the mermaid is surely a fit subject for further serious study
A biography of Juliusz Roger a physician, humanist and a naturalist is presented. Doctor Roger, who was of German origin, spent most of his life in Silesia where he become known as a physician, social activist and a German enthusiast of the Polish folklore in the area. In the 1863 he published The Songs and Music of the Polish People in Upper Silesia. He was also valued entomologist who wrote several works on beetles and ants. As a physician Roger helped to reorganize and extend hospitals at Rudy Wielkie and Pilchowice near Gliwice and he collected funds for construction of the municipal hospital in Rybnik that has been functioning to the present day.
The authors investigated three seemingly contradictory views of the conception of illness: (a) the traditional, developmental "naive child" view; (b) a more contemporary, "sophisticated child" outlook; and (c) a largely social-psychological, "irrational adult" approach, They concluded that participants had a variety of views of the conception of illness and that they used different views in different experimental contexts. They found that, under certain conditions, children appeared to have sophisticated beliefs; under other conditions, children, and even adults, showed signs of folkloric and immanent justice reasoning. They also found that, with advancing grade level, children increasingly recognized psychological contributors to the cause of illness.
A great deal of folklore, superstition and emotional reaction is attached to the common cold, but established objective information is quite limited. The evidence concerning etiology, epidemiology, physiology, prevention and treatment of the common cold is briefly summarized and critically evaluated. There is disappointing lack of real progress in any of these aspects of the common cold problem.
An evidence-based systematic review including written and statistical analysis of scientific literature, expert opinion, folkloric precedent, history, pharmacology, kinetics/dynamics, interactions, adverse effects, toxicology, and dosing.
Kumagusu Minakata (1867-1941), a Japanese genius devoted to natural history and folklore, is famous for his immense range of works (including 50 monographs in 'Nature') and his discovery of several varieties of mycetozoa. His diary and the observations of other persons reveal that he was affected by several grand mal epileptic seizures, and he complained himself of frequent déjà vu experiences which he called promnesia according to Myers. Promnesia means, for example, "I have lived through all this before, and I know what will happen this next minute." Minakata also had this rare type of aural sign. MRI analysis of his postmortem brain found evidence of right hippocampal atrophy. This result showed that he had temporal lobe epilepsy with focus of the right side, and this coincides with his déjà vu experiences which were the aura of the loss of consciousness. However, he did not notice that these were aural signs, and he also complained of memory disturbances due to frequent déjà vu. His behavioral characteristics were peculiar, and those of Dostoyevsky who also had temporal lobe epilepsy were similar. Temporal lobe epilepsies may influence behavioral patterns which control the emotions. As a positive point, some patients with temporal lobe epilepsy can exhibit their primordial mental actions and perform persistent works.
We surveyed 1,771 members of The American Dietetic Association, who worked in general nutrition, pediatrics, and public health nutrition, about their clients' beliefs about nutrition during pregnancy. The practitioners were chosen because they likely served pregnant women and/or women with young children. Items for the belief inventory were generated by surveying the beliefs of pregnant and nonpregnant adolescents and their families, teachers, and peers as well as by collecting beliefs heard from clients of social workers, nurses, and dietitians residing in the state of Tennessee. Using a modified q-sort, 26 statements were developed to survey dietitians practicing nationwide. Results indicate that beliefs about physiological needs during pregnancy, practices related to a healthy baby, and beverage recommendations were not significantly different across the regions designated by US Public Health Services (Standard Federal Administrative Regions). However, beliefs about cravings and folklore showed strong regional differences, with the Southeast regions and adjacent states differing significantly from other regions. The majority of beliefs are not supported by scientific information, and results support the need for each region to identify beliefs that could influence dietary patterns (eg, eating for two, eating only a few selected foods, restricting salt, taking vitamins to overcome an inadequate diet, and deciding pregnancy is a good time to lose weight). We recommend that dietetic practitioners become aware of clients' beliefs, support beliefs that are accurate according to current recommendations for pregnancy, and counsel clients about beliefs that are potentially detrimental to good nutrition during pregnancy.
Cultural nutrition encompasses a wide sweep of food-related themes within three major categories: arts and humanities, social sciences, and biological-natural sciences. The paper, first of three, considers the arts and humanities. Topics include food and diet expressed through art, film, music, and dance. The essay then examines food and diet in representative works of literature, both ancient and modern. The place of food and diet within folklore, mythology, and religion is treated, with consideration of symbolic roles played by food throughout the human life cycle, especially with birth and infancy, coming-of-age, marriage, and death. Religion, a major theme in cultural nutrition, is explored and the food-dietary patterns of Jews, Christians, Moslems, Hindus, and Shintos are treated. Ethics and philosophy are examined as both relate to programs of international food relief and vegetarianism. The essay concludes with a review of work by historians, especially themes of famine and approaches taken to refeed populations during combat and hostilities.
The association of twins with health-giving powers is widespread in mythology, folklore, and religion. The Ashvins of the Rig-Veda, the classical Dioscuri, and the early Christian saints Cosmos and Damian are among the many examples of twins divinely empowered in the area of health and fertility. A characteristic set of attributes of twins recurs in different mythologies of wide distribution. In addition to healing, divine twins are often empowered with the ability to revive the dead, increase the fertility of man, animals, and crops, influence the weather, predict the future, and insure victory in battle. In some traditional societies these special attributes are thought to extend to all of the twins and their parents in the tribe.Ancient and primitive societies supposed that the birth of twins was associated with divine influence, the mother having been visited or otherwise affected by supernatural powers. A frequent explanation was that twins were the result of superfetation, a divine impregnation occurring along with that by the lawful husband. The specific powers of divine twins appear to be a reflection of the particular form of origin of twins through divine interference with the fertilization process. The twins thus share some of the powers of the divine parent, particularly those pertaining to fertility. Their dual paternity and its inherent competition is related to their martial interests as well as their ability to resolve ambivalent or ambiguous situations and predict outcomes.
Alcohol is discussed as a core symbol of American culture. The language associated with alcohol, other "substances," and their widely shared folklore are shown to underlie the official "disease" model of alcoholism and treatment. The cultural psychology that gives the disease model its plausibility and experimental validity is discussed. Similar to "possession" theories in other societies, in American alcoholism the "not-me" is seen as overtaking the normal, social "me," inducing states of drunkenness if not chronic disease. This depersonalizing creates a paradox: requiring control from one held to be out of control by virtue of the disease process. It is argued that the disease model inadvertently helps perpetuate the very problems its proponents aim to treat. The author argues that conventional theories of alcohol, alcoholism, and alcoholics provide a standardizing, homogenizing, stereotypic story of far more complex accounts of alcohol use. Alternatives to the current metaphor are suggested.
Although Chinese folklore holds that the Dragon Year is an auspicious time to have a birth, notable increases in Chinese fertility in Dragon Years did not occur before 1976. Demographic explanations for the belated occurrence of this phenomenon rely on the notion of natural fertility: that is, couples' lack of modern contraception had kept such decisions outside the realm of choice. The decomposition performed in this article, however, shows that the bulk of the 1976 Dragon Year baby boom on Taiwan was due to strategies that had always been available: marriage timing, abortion, and coital behavior. The natural fertility paradigm thus is insufficient in explaining the motivation for this behavior and should be complemented by institutional approaches.
The interest taken in traditional African Therapies was classically supported by a system of anthropological eurocentric references, motivated amongst other things by a folkloric curiosity. The socio-political evolution has progressively modified the vision of ethnologic teams of psycho-sociologists and psychiatrists. COLLOMB and LAMBO permitted recognition of a psycho-pathology which integrates with the cultural reality of the Africans and the Negros. The O.M.S. at present is supervising a number of enquiries into traditional African medicine. Obviously, such an ideological mutation imposes on occidental psychiatry the conceptualisation sociometry of certain traditional group therapies, distinctly making n'doep the forerunner in morenian psychodrama, and putting the healer in the position of leader in certain domains of modern psychiatry. Should occidental Europe be listening to the African Models?
Many new natural product-derived pharmaceutically active compounds and compositions, each effective in treating an array of diseases and maladies including various tumors and HIV, have been reportedly isolated from different sources of vegetation, including the bark of yew trees, needles, leaves, fungi, and cell culture of many different species; vegetables such as West African yams; and Chinese and Indian herbs. Other sources include vegetation from South American rainforests. Many of the sources of such natural products are historical in nature and/or are known from folklore. Recent studies have provided potentially new biodiverse pharmaceutical compounds such as paclitaxel, which is obtainable from several species, including various portions of T. brevifolia, the Western yew tree, and other yew species such as T. baccata, T. cuspidata, T. wallichiana, T. media, T. canadensis, T. chinensis and T. yunnanensis as well as from T. wardii, T. capitata, T. brownii, T. gem, T. globosa, T. floridana, T. hicksii, T. densiformis, and T. darkgreen spreader, in addition to cultured plant cells and fungi. The novel compounds and their semisynthetic brominated and chlorinated analogs prepared from T. yunnanensis extract show strong activity against several types of tumors.
Traditional medicinal plants in various countries, particularly in India have been used for centuries for various ailments; however, there has been little scientific effort to validate these anecdotal uses mentioned in the literature. A number of these traditionally used plant extracts and various "Ayurvedic medicines" that are highly valued in Ayurveda, the traditional system of medicine in India for antiaging, memory-enhancing, nerve tonic, anxiolytic, anti-inflammatory and immunopotentiation, have been screened using National Institutes of Mental Health (NIMH) Synthetic Screening Program for scientific validation and the development of new leads of psychotherapeutic compounds using Radioligand Receptor Binding Assays (RRA). Crude methanolic extracts of plants are screened using approximately 40 different in vitro RRA (primarily from rat brain homogenates) and 6 enzyme assays including acetylcholine esterase, choline acetyltransferase, and monoamine oxidase (MAO), A and B. The total crude extracts of many of these plants showed potent selectivity to various receptors, especially gamma-Amino Butyric Acid (GABA(A)), N-Methyl-D-Aspartic Acid (NMDA), and MAO receptors, which are presumed to be involved in mental disorders. The focus was on plants showing the highest displacement of GABA, cholecystokinin (CCK), NMDA, MAO, and benzodiazopines. Bioassay guided fractionation of the most active extracts resulted in pure compounds which retained the original activity of the crude extract validating the folkloric use. A bioactivity-guided fractionation of Terminalia bellerica fruit extract led to the isolation of several pure compounds which retained the original activity of the crude extract for CCK and GABA receptors, with the exception of compound B3EA-6, which exhibited high affinity for Neurokinin receptor (Substance K approximately NK-1). The absolute structure of B3EA-6 has been established by x-ray crystallography.