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PubMed1992

Don Pasquale, Fidelio, and psychiatry.

Donizetti's Don Pasquale and Beethoven's Fidelio are discussed in order to illustrate how two very different operas can illustrate the human quest for authenticity. Through their music and dramatic presentation they are able to convey experiential insights into profound philosophic and psychologic truths. Along with other experiential communications, such as myths, folklore, poetry, humor, and art, they can be especially helpful--not only but also--in psychotherapy, in providing access to potentials that ordinarily are sealed off, in enhancing the awareness of inauthentic attitudes, in facilitating the acceptance of seemingly paradoxical aspects of human existence, and in providing a deeper sense for life's meaningfulness. Music is invaluable in opening our soul to the story's thoughts, feelings, and commitments.

Drama↗
PubMed1983

John Henryism and blood pressure differences among black men.

A community probability sample of southern working-class, black men (N = 132) between 17 and 60 years of age was administered a scale to measure the degree to which they felt they could control their environment through hard work and determination. Since the legend of John Henry--the famous, black steeldriver of American folklore--can be understood as a cultural statement about how black Americans must often attempt to control behavioral stressors through hard work and determination, items for the scale were developed to reflect the theme of John Henryism. It was hypothesized that men scoring below the median on education but above the median on John Henryism would have higher blood pressures than any other group. The data were in line with the prediction, in that men who scored low on education and high on John Henryism had significantly higher diastolic blood pressures than men who scored above the median on both measures. Study findings are discussed in terms of the meaning that education and John Henryism may have for raising or lowering autonomic arousal when individuals encounter behavioral stressors in everyday life.

Achievement↗
PubMed1978

Psychosexual material in the stories told by children: the fucker.

The spontaneously reported narrative fictions collected from 5- to 11-year-old children were examined for the presence of overt psychosexual elements. Two developmental hypotheses were advanced: (1) that the children's expressions would become more inhibited and therefore more indirect with age (Wolfenstein) and (2) that their expressions would not be more inhibited with age but simply more complex and wide ranging (Legman). The data are interpreted as supporting the latter proposition. The older children in the present sample give a wide-ranging display of psychosexual material stated just as directly as is the case with the narrower array for the younger children. Freud's dictum that the higher a joke rises in polite society the more indirect must be its form of expression is thus not supported in the present elementary school. The cultural relativity of the hypothesis is suggested. A folktale analysis of these materials shows that they are most appropriately described as typical of the "trickster" figure in folkloric genre. The Fucker appears to be a subcategory of this genre as well as an enduring folk figure.

Age Factors↗
PubMed1988

The psychology of paranormal beliefs.

Investigation of paranormal claims has failed to find any repeatable phenomena, yet beliefs in such phenomena are extremely prevalent. Some of the psychological mechanisms which support these beliefs are described. Mental imagery, subjective validation, coincidence, hidden causes, and fraud all contribute to the folklore in this field. Magical thinking is as evident today as it ever has been. Recent research suggests that increased skepticism concerning paranormal claims can result from special educational procedures which emphasize critical thinking rather than learning scientific facts.

Attitude↗
PubMed2003

A polyacetylene and flavonoids from Cirsium rhinoceros.

Cirsium rhinoceros Nakai (Compositae) is a herbaceous perennial native to Korea, whole plant of which has been used in folklore medicine. C. rhinoceros was extracted by a standard extraction procedure. Its n-hexane, CHCl3 and n-BuOH extracts were fractionated by column chromatography to provide a polyacetylene, a coumarin and five flavonoids. Ciryneol C, scopoletin, acacetin, cirsimarin were isolated for the first time from this plant.

Acetylene↗
PubMed2005

The changing motives of cesarean section: from the ancient world to the twenty-first century.

BACKGROUND: Cesarean delivery has been practiced for ages, although originally as a universally postmortem procedure. It is referred to in the myths and folklore of many ancient societies, for some of the infants delivered in this way survived, even though their mothers did not. Since the Renaissance, the objective of the procedure has gradually shifted towards saving the lives of both the mother and the child, and this has become ever more possible, as maternal and perinatal mortality and morbidity decreased dramatically during the twentieth century. CURRENT ISSUES: Today (at the beginning of twenty-first century), we are not only concerned with the safety and health of the mother and the child, but also with mother's desires and preferences and the child's rights.

Cesarean Section↗
PubMed2005

Use of alternative folk medicine by Mexican American women.

Nontraditional health care resources available to Mexican Americans are many. The Mexican culture is rich with alternative health and illness beliefs and remedies which have their origins in ancient Mestizo/Indian folklore which viewed the causes of illness to include social, spiritual, and physical forces. This perception calls for culturally relevant folk practitioners who can treat all aspects of the perceived illness. This study of 70-Mexican American women explored their knowledge of and use of alternative Mexican folk medical practitioners in their own health maintenance. Results provided some evidence that, even among highly assimilated Mexican American women, there persist traditional, indigenous beliefs, and practices.

Adult↗
PubMed1990

Chrysin (5,7-di-OH-flavone), a naturally-occurring ligand for benzodiazepine receptors, with anticonvulsant properties.

Chrysin (5,7-di-OH-flavone) was identified in Passiflora coerulea L., a plant used as a sedative in folkloric medicine. Chrysin was found to be a ligand for the benzodiazepine receptors, both central (Ki = 3 microM, competitive mechanism) and peripheral (Ki = 13 microM, mixed-type mechanism). Administered to mice by the intracerebroventricular route, chrysin was able to prevent the expression of tonic-clonic seizures induced by pentylenetertrazol. Ro 15-1788, a central benzodiazepine receptor antagonist, abolished this effect. In addition, all of the treated mice lose the normal righting reflex which suggests a myorelaxant action of the flavonoid. The presence in P. coerulea of benzodiazepine-like compounds was also confirmed.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Olfactory acuity in the common raven (Corvus corax).

The efficacy with which ravens can locate concealed carrion and similar foods has been noted from antiquity. This ability has been claimed in folklore to indicate an acute sense of smell. Contemporary opinion among ornithologists is that the sense of smell is weak at best in passerines, and particularly so in corvids which lack developed olfactory apparatus. Four studies were performed to test whether ravens could find hidden food (fresh ground fish) under conditions where scent was presumed to be the sole cue. The subjects, captive juvenile ravens (five males and three females) capably chose which one in a pair of containers held food buried under 2.0 cm of No. 4 gravel, discovered food concealed under as much as 2.5 cm of gravel, and located as little as 1.0 g of food covered by 1.5 cm of gravel. The several findings are consistent with the possibility that ravens can use olfactory cues to find food.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Ophthalmology's botanical heritage.

Many of today's important ophthalmic pharmaceuticals have a rich ethnobotanical history. Solanaceous plants, the source of atropine, have contributed to medical therapy since the beginning of Western civilization. The botanical source of physostigmine played a pivotal role as an ordeal poison in the culture of Old Calabar, West Africa. Native peoples of Amazonia treasured plants containing pilocarpine as panaceas because of their impressive diaphoretic effect. Nineteenth century scientists examining these plants because of their folkloric reputations discovered their active compounds and documented their physiological effects. Ophthalmologists such as Argyll Robertson, Laqueur, and Weber built upon this research to bring these pharmaceuticals into therapeutic use. The ongoing loss of the world's tropical rain forests threatens to destroy a vast storehouse of untested biological compounds.

Glaucoma↗
PubMed1988

Inhibition of growth of human immunodeficiency virus in vitro by crude extracts of Chinese medicinal herbs.

Twenty-seven medicinal herbs reputed in ancient Chinese folklore to have anti-infective properties were extracted by boiling under reflux. The extracts were tested for inhibitory activity against the human immunodeficiency virus in the H9 cell line at concentrations nontoxic to growth of the H9 cells. Using a significant reduction (greater than 3 S. D. below the mean) in the percentage of cells positive for specific viral antigens in three successive assays as indicative of activity against the virus, 11 of the 27 extracts were found to be active. One of the extracts (Viola yedoensis) was studied in greater depth. At a subtoxic concentration, this extract shut off completely the growth of HIV in virtually all experiments. It did not inactivate HIV extracellularly, did not induce interferon and did not inhibit the growth of herpes simplex, polio or vesicular stomatitis viruses in human fibroblast culture. Chinese medicinal herbs appeared to be a rich source of potentially useful materials for the treatment of human immunodeficiency virus infection.

Antigens, Viral↗
PubMed1992

The cultural logic of Indian medicine: prognosis and etiology in Rajasthani popular therapeutics.

This paper considers certain ways of describing and treating sickness in rural Rajasthan, and the representations of sickness and of the body on which they are based. Two indigenous medical or 'ethnomedical' perspectives on illness and its treatment emerge from the analysis of ethnographic material collected during field research in northern India. In the first part of the paper various characterizations of South Asian medicine are discussed, and I suggest that Western preconceptions about the nature and purpose of 'medicine' itself has led one of these perspectives to be highlighted in anthropological considerations at the expense of the other. A further dimension of ethnomedicine emerges through discussions of local therapeutic rituals and discourses about sickness and the body. This consideration of one domain of local therapeutics reveals its underlying cultural logic and highlights ethnomedical formulations that have heretofore been analytically neglected. It does not address the formal or textually based Indian medical traditions to any extent. It is concerned with the cultural construction of sickness and medicine among Hindu lay people and folk healers and employs folkloric material that, though rarely considered in anthropological writings on South Asia, may be fruitful guide to the meanings which sickness has for those experiencing and treating it.

Culture↗
PubMed1996

Variation in the placebo effect in randomised controlled trials of analgesics: all is as blind as it seems.

The objective was to investigate the relationship between pain relief scores produced by placebo and by active interventions in randomised controlled trials (RCTs). Individual patient categorical pain relief scores from 5 placebo-controlled single-dose parallel-group RCTs in acute postoperative pain were used to calculate the percentage of the maximum possible pain relief score (%maxTOTPAR) for the different treatments. One hundred and thirty of the 525 patients in the 5 trials had a placebo. Individual patients' scores with placebo varied from 0 to 100% of the maximum possible pain relief. The proportion who obtained more than 50% of the maximum possible pain relief with placebo varied from 7% to 37% across the trials; with the active drugs the variation was from 5 to 63%. Mean placebo scores were related to the mean score for the active treatments in each study; the higher the mean active score, the higher the mean placebo score. This relationship disappeared when median values were used. Medical folklore has it that the amount of relief obtained with placebo is one-third of the maximum possible (and does not vary), and that one-third of patients respond to placebo. The results show that the amount of relief obtained with placebo varies considerably between patients, that 38% of patients obtained more than 10% of the maximum possible relief, and 16% obtained greater than 50%. In double-blind, randomised parallel-group studies of high quality placebo scores should not vary. Despite these conditions being met the placebo scores did vary. The previous explanation, of a relationship between the mean placebo scores and the mean scores for the active treatments was not supported.

Analgesics↗
PubMed1983

The ethnobiology of the Haitian zombi.

For many years students of Haitian society have suggested that there is an ethnopharmacological basis for the notorious zombies, the living dead of peasant folklore. The recent surfacing of three zombies, one of whom may represent the first potentially verifiable case, has focused scientific attention on the reported zombi drug. The formula of the poison was obtained at four widely separated localities in Haiti. The consistent ingredients include one or more species of puffer fish (Diodon hystrix, Diodon holacanthus or Sphoeroides testudineus) which contain tetrodotoxins, potent neurotoxins fully capable of pharmacologically inducing the zombi state. The ingredients, preparation and method of application are presented. The symptomology of tetrodotoxication as described in the biomedical literature is compared with the constellations of symptoms recorded from the zombies in Haiti. The cosmological rationale of zombies within the context of Voodoo theology is described. Preliminary laboratory tests are summarized.

Amphibians↗
PubMed1983

Some pharmacological, toxicological and phytochemical investigations on Centaurea phyllocephala.

Centaurea phyllocephala Boiss. has been used in folkloric medicine as an antidiabetic agent. Present investigations on various extracts of C. phyllocephala revealed that basal plasma glucose concentration and plasma glucose response to glucose load were either elevated or unchanged by the i.v. administration of these extracts in anaesthetized rats or by i.p. or oral administration of the extracts in conscious rats. The predominant effect of C. phyllocephala is the toxicity in rats and mice and this indicates the presence of some toxic or active compounds which merit phytochemical isolation. Further, C. phyllocephala extracts also caused either an initial brief hypotension followed by a delayed hypertension or produced no changes when injected i.v. in the rats. The hypotensive effect was inhibited by atropine whereas the hypertensive effect was prevented by phentolamine or guanethidine but not by hexamethonium. The alcoholic extract also induced an initial brief negative inotropic effect, followed by delayed prolonged positive inotropic and negative chronotropic effects on the spontaneous inotropic and negative chronotropic effects on the spontaneous contractions of the guinea pig right atrium. The initial depressing effect and the delayed positive inotropic effect were inhibited by pretreatment with atropine. The extract of C. phyllocephala also produced a contractile activity on guinea pig ileum strips and this could be prevented by atropine. No significant diuretic effect was produced by the extract. Phytochemical screening revealed that C. phyllocephala contains tertiary and quaternary alkaloids, sesquiterpene lactones, methylated flavones and their glycosides, as well as leuco- and proanthocyanidines. Further studies on sesquiterpene lactones and methylated flavones resulted in the isolation of lactones with alpha-methylene gamma-lactone and methylene side chain on the cyclopentyl ring as well as of four methylated flavones (hispidulin, nepetin, cirsiliol, jaceosidin) structurally closely related to the cytotoxic flavonoids of other Compositae plants.

Animals↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Chemistry and pharmacology of an ethanol extract of Bumelia sartorum.

Bumelia sartorum has been mentioned in Brazilian folklore for its reputed use in the treatment of diabetes mellitus and inflammatory disorders. An ethanol extract of root bark elicited a hypoglycemic effect in normal and alloxan-induced diabetic rats. In addition, the extract altered glucose tolerance in alloxan-induced diabetic rats, enhanced glucose uptake in skeletal muscle and significantly inhibited glycogenolysis in the liver. These results indicate that the hypoglycemic effect may be similar to chlorpropamide and possibly due to an enhanced secretion of insulin from the islets of Langerhans or an increased utilization of glucose by peripheral tissues. Besides hypoglycemic activity, the ethanol extract also elicited significant anti-inflammatory activity, but did not show any significant effects on blood pressure, respiration or on the various isolated tissue preparations studied. Basic acid has been isolated from the ethanol extract and this component may be responsible for the observed anti-inflammatory activity. However, it is yet to be established whether basic acid is responsible for the observed hypoglycemic activity of the ethanol extract.

Animals↗
PubMed1986

Ethnomedical and ethnobotanical investigations among some scheduled caste communities of Travancore, Kerala, India.

Investigations were conducted on the traditional life, culture and medical lore of some prominent scheduled caste communities, namely Pulayar, Kuravar, Vedar, Parayar and Nayadi, inhabiting the Travancore region of Kerala. These communities were perhaps some of the original inhabitants of Kerala who have evolved their own peculiar cultural traditions, religious customs, cults, totems, legends, myths, folklores and medicinal practices. But in recent years these communities are being enveloped in the rising tide of civilization and their age old cultural heritage and knowledge systems are fast disappearing. Considering the great importance of conserving/preserving this knowledge system the present study was undertaken. Much interesting information on the cultural life of these communities was gathered. Special attention was paid to the study of their medicinal practices which is essentially a magico-religious-herbal therapy. These tribals have an indepth knowledge of the surrounding flora and utilize over 500 plant species for treating various ailments. The present communication reports only those medical claims for plants that have not been previously published.

Ethnicity↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Evaluation of the efficacy of Melothria maderaspatana in the alleviation of carbon tetrachloride-induced liver dysfunction.

An investigation was carried out to evaluate the ability of Melothria maderaspatana to protect the livers of albino rats from carbon tetrachloride-mediated alterations in liver histopathology and serum levels of alanine aminotransferase, aspartate aminotransferase and alkaline phosphatase. Treatment with an aqueous extract of Melothria aerial parts (either before or after CCl4 administration) markedly decreased CCl4-mediated alterations in liver histopathology as well as serum enzyme levels. Results provide supportive evidence for the folklore view that this plant is a good hepatotonic.

Alanine Transaminase↗