Traditional medicine (also known asindigenous medicine orfolk medicine) refers to the knowledge, skills, and practices rooted in the cultural beliefs of various societies, especially Indigenous groups, used with the intent of treating illness and maintaining health.[1]
In someAsian andAfrican countries, up to 80% of people rely on traditional medicine for primary health care. Traditional medicine includes systems likeAyurveda,traditional Chinese medicine, andUnani. TheWorld Health Organization supports their integration, but warns of potential risks and calls for more research on their safety and effectiveness.
The use of medicinal herbs spans over 5,000 years, beginning with ancient civilizations like theSumerians,Egyptians,Indians, andChinese, evolving throughGreek,Roman,Islamic, andmedieval European traditions, and continuing intocolonial America, with beliefs passed down, translated, and expanded across cultures and centuries. Indigenous folk medicine is traditionally passed down orally within communities, often through designatedhealers likeshamans ormidwives, and remains practiced based on personal belief, community trust, and perceived effectiveness—even as broader cultural acceptance wanes.
In the written record, the study of herbs dates back 5,000 years to the ancientSumerians, who described various medicinal uses for plants. InAncient Egyptian medicine, theEbers papyrus from c. 1552 BC records a list of folk remedies and magical medical practices.[2]
Roman sources includedPliny the Elder'sNatural History andCelsus'sDe Medicina.[4]Pedanius Dioscorides drew on and corrected earlier authors for hisDe Materia Medica, adding much new material; the work was translated into several languages, andTurkish,Arabic andHebrew names were added to it over the centuries.[5] Latin manuscripts ofDe Materia Medica were combined with a Latin herbal byApuleius Platonicus (Herbarium Apuleii Platonici) and were incorporated into the Anglo-SaxoncodexCotton Vitellius C.III. These early Greek and Roman compilations became the backbone of European medical theory and were translated by the PersianAvicenna (Ibn Sīnā, 980–1037), the PersianRhazes (Rāzi, 865–925) and the JewishMaimonides.[4]
Somefossils have been used in traditional medicine since antiquity.[6]
Arabic indigenous medicine developed from the conflict between the magic-based medicine of theBedouins and the Arabic translations of the Hellenic andAyurvedic medical traditions.[7] Spanish medicine was influenced by the Arabs from 711 to 1492.[8] Islamic physicians andMuslim botanists such asal-Dinawari[9] andIbn al-Baitar[10] significantly expanded on the earlier knowledge of materia medica. The most famous Persian medical treatise was Avicenna'sThe Canon of Medicine, which was an earlypharmacopoeia and introducedclinical trials.[11][12][13] TheCanon wastranslated into Latin in the 12th century and remained a medical authority in Europe until the 17th century. TheUnani system of traditional medicine is also based on theCanon.[14]
Translations of the early Roman-Greek compilations were made into German byHieronymus Bock whose herbal, published in 1546, was calledKreuter Buch. The book was translated intoDutch asPemptades byRembert Dodoens (1517–1585), and from Dutch intoEnglish byCarolus Clusius, (1526–1609), published byHenry Lyte in 1578 asA Nievve Herball. This becameJohn Gerard's (1545–1612)Herball or General Historie of Plantes.[4][5] Each new work was a compilation of existing texts with new additions.
Women's folk knowledge existed in undocumented parallel with these texts.[4] Forty-four drugs, diluents, flavouring agents andemollients mentioned by Dioscorides are still listed in the official pharmacopoeias of Europe.[5] ThePuritans took Gerard's work to theUnited States where it influenced American Indigenous medicine.[4]
Francisco Hernández, physician toPhilip II of Spain spent the years 1571–1577 gathering information inMexico and then wroteRerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus, many versions of which have been published including one byFrancisco Ximénez. Both Hernandez and Ximenez fittedAztec ethnomedicinal information into the European concepts of disease such as "warm", "cold", and "moist", but it is not clear that the Aztecs used these categories.[15]Juan de Esteyneffer'sFlorilegio medicinal de todas las enfermedades compiled European texts and added 35 Mexican plants.
Martín de la Cruz wrote a herbal inNahuatl which was translated intoLatin byJuan Badiano asLibellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis orCodex Barberini, Latin 241 and given to KingCarlos V of Spain in 1552.[16] It was apparently written in haste[17] and influenced by the European occupation of the previous 30 years. FrayBernardino de Sahagún's usedethnographic methods to compile his codices that then became theHistoria General de las Cosas de Nueva España, published in 1793.[16] Castore Durante published hisHerbario Nuovo in 1585 describing medicinal plants from Europe and the East andWest Indies. It was translated into German in 1609 and Italian editions were published for the next century.
In 17th and 18th-century America, traditional folk healers, frequently women, used herbal remedies,cupping andleeching.[18]Native American traditional herbal medicine introduced cures for malaria, dysentery, scurvy, non-venereal syphilis, and goiter problems.[19] Many of these herbal and folk remedies continued on through the 19th and into the 20th century,[20] with some plant medicines forming the basis for modern pharmacology.[21]
The prevalence of folk medicine in certain areas of the world varies according to cultural norms.[22] Some modern medicine is based on plantphytochemicals that had been used in folk medicine.[23] Researchers state that many of the alternative treatments are "statistically indistinguishable fromplacebo treatments".[24]
Indigenous medicine is generally transmittedorally through a community, family and individuals until "collected". Within a given culture, elements of indigenous medicine knowledge may be diffusely known by many, or may be gathered and applied by those in a specific role of healer such as ashaman ormidwife.[25] Three factors legitimize the role of the healer – their own beliefs, the success of their actions and the beliefs of the community.[26] When the claims of indigenous medicine become rejected by a culture, generally three types of adherents still use it – those born and socialized in it who become permanent believers, temporary believers who turn to it in crisis times, and those who only believe in specific aspects, not in all of it.[27][verification needed]
Traditional medicine may sometimes be considered as distinct from folk medicine, and considered to include formalized aspects of folk medicine. Under this definition folk medicine are longstanding remedies and practises passed on and practiced by lay people. Folk medicine consists of thehealing modalities, ideas of bodyphysiology andhealth preservation known to some in a culture, transmitted informally as general knowledge, and practiced or applied by anyone in the culture having prior experience.[28]
Generally, bush medicine used byAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people inAustralia is made from plant materials, such as bark, leaves and seeds, although animal products may be used as well.[33] A major component of traditional medicine isherbal medicine, which is the use of natural plant substances to treat or prevent illness.[34]
American Native andAlaska Native medicine are traditional forms of healing that have been around for thousands of years. There are manyethnobotany plants involved in traditional medicine for Native Americans and some are still used today. When it comes to Native American traditional medicine, the ideas surrounding health and illness within the culture are virtually inseparable from the ideas of religion and spirituality.[35] Healers within indigenous communities go by many names ranging frommedicine man or woman to herbalist or even shaman and are considered spiritual or religious leaders within their respective tribes.[35] When it comes to healing, tribal healers would look at a plant's characteristics to determine its efficacy for the treatment of an illness.[36] Specific plant characteristics such as plant shape, smell, color, and taste could aid in determining how the plant could be used as a remedy.[36] The Meskwaki tribe found they could use the juice fromArum maculatum for snakebites.[36] This was inferred from the milky appearance of the juice from the plant which is said to resemble snake venom, and the plant's shape resembled the head of a snake.[36] Native Americans usedfoxglove herb as a treatment for an illness they referred to as dropsy or edema, which is fluid buildup typically in the lower legs, and its common cause is heart failure.[36] In modern medicine, foxglove extract is still used under the name digitalis, and its purpose is to moderate the heart rate.[36] Native Americans were successful with some medical practices, such as treating fevers, gastrointestinal conditions, skin rashes, setting bones, as well as birthing babies, and aiding mothers in healing.[36] A study conducted within anIHS hospital that allows Navajo healers to visit patients found that the hospital had an 80 percent success rate in getting comatose patients back to consciousness, which is higher than the rate of present-day biomedical management hospitals.[35] The plant familyAsteraceae has been commonly selected for orthopedic aids and pulmonary aids, specifically the speciesAchillea andArtemisia.[37] A study conducted amongst 14 different tribes within North America found thatAsteraceae was the most widely used plant family for its medicinal properties.[37]
Nattuvaidyam was a set of indigenous medical practices that existed in India before the advent of allopathic or western medicine.[38] These practices had different sets of principles and ideas of the body, health and disease. There were overlaps and borrowing of ideas, medicinal compounds used and techniques within these practices.[39] Some of these practices had written texts in vernacular languages like Malayalam, Tamil, or Telugu, while others were handed down orally through various mnemonic devices. Ayurveda was one kind of nattuvaidyam practised in south India.[40] The others were kalarichikitsa (related to bone setting and musculature),[41] marmachikitsa (vital spot massaging), chintamanivaidyam and so on. When the medical system was revamped in twentieth century India, many of the practices and techniques specific to some of these diverse nattuvaidyam were included in Ayurveda.[42]
Ahome remedy (sometimes also referred to as agranny cure) is a treatment to cure adisease or ailment that employs certain spices,herbs, vegetables, or other common items. Home remedies may or may not havemedicinal properties that treat or cure the disease or ailment in question, as they are typically passed along by laypersons (which has been facilitated in recent years by theInternet). Many are merely used as a result oftradition orhabit or because they are effective in inducing theplacebo effect.[43]
One of the more popular examples of a home remedy is the use ofchicken soup as an aid in treatingrespiratoryinfections such as a cold or mildflu. Other examples of home remedies includeduct tape to help with setting broken bones; duct tape or superglue to treatplantar warts; andKogel mogel to treat sore throat. In earlier times, mothers were entrusted with all but serious remedies. Historiccookbooks are frequently full of remedies fordyspepsia, fevers, and female complaints.[44] Components of thealoe vera plant are used to treat skin disorders.[45] Many Europeanliqueurs ordigestifs were originally sold as medicinal remedies. In Chinese folk medicine, medicinalcongees (long-cooked rice soups with herbs), foods, and soups are part of treatment practices.[46]
Although 130 countries have regulations on folk medicines, there are risks associated with the use of them (i.e.zoonosis, mainly as some traditional medicines still use animal-based substances[47][48]). It is often assumed that because supposed medicines are natural that they are safe, but numerous precautions are associated with using herbal remedies.[49]
Sometimes traditional medicines include parts of endangered species, such as theslow loris in Southeast Asia.
Endangered animals, such as theslow loris, are sometimes killed to make traditional medicines.[50]
Sharkfins have also been used in traditional medicine, and although their effectiveness has not been proven, it is hurting shark populations and their ecosystem.[51]
The illegalivory trade can partially be traced back to buyers oftraditional Chinese medicine. Demand for ivory is a huge factor in the poaching of endangered species such as rhinos and elephants.[52]
Pangolins are threatened by poaching for their meat and scales, which are used in traditional medicine. They are the most trafficked mammals in the world.
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