CHAPTER 3: HEALERS AND HEALING

Ethnomedicine refers to the medical systems based on the cultural beliefs of varying ethnic groups (e.g. Traditional Chinese Medicine).

Ethno-nosology: Refers to the cross-cultural systems of classification of health issues.[1]. In a wide sense, nosology deals not only with diseases, but with any kind of medical condition, like injuries, lesions or disorders. Medical conditions, like diseases, can be defined by cause, pathogenesis (mechanism by which the disease is caused), or by a collection of symptoms, medical signs and biomarkers, particularly when the other two definitions are not available (idiopathic diseases). From a nosological point of view, medical conditions could be divided in disorders, diseases, syndromes, lesions and injuries, each one with some specific meaning

Culture-bound syndromes: Also known as culture-specific syndrome, or folk illness, is a combination of psychiatric and somatic symptoms that are considered to be a recognizable disease, whether it be psychological or physical, only within a specific society or culture.

Disease/Illness Dichotomy: Dichotomy is the division of one thing into two parts or a subdivision into halves or pairs. In medical anthropology, the two aspects of sickness are divided to better care and heal those in need. Disease and Illness are two very different things in the medical field that are responded in different ways. Diseases are the biological and psychological malfunctioning of the body physically. Illnesses deal with the psychology of the human where the psychosocial experiences bring on the sense of illness or disease.

Diagnosis/Divination: A diagnosis is the act of identifying or determining the nature and cause of a disease or injury through the evaluation of a patient. Divination is the seeing of future events or somehow gaining unknown knowledge through the supernatural.