An ethnomedicine study among women in Uremia (North-West Iran)

Coll Antropol. 2012 Jun;36(2):491-7.

Abstract

During the recent years, ethomedicine has attracted a great deal of attention among the investigators throughout the world. Although ethnomedicine seeks, in the first place, to compensate for a biological need through providing cures for disorders, it, however, is of a cultural nature, too, in that it investigates people's behaviors and reactions toward health and the issues related to it. Consequently, traditional health must be counted as a component of a society's culture. Investigations of people's views toward traditional medicine are capable of throwing light on acquaintance with their conducts, customs, traditions and behaviors, as well as the social-economic conditions prevailing in their environment. In addition, such investigations of public medicine bring about familiarities with gradual developments in traditional medical methodologies as introduced by culture, economic, or social factors, first into the society, then medicine. Familiarizations with cultural diversities in relation to medicine are the end results. The present paper comprise an anthropological approach toward investigation of ethnomedical practiced by women of Uremia (North-West, Iran).

MeSH terms

  • Cultural Characteristics*
  • Culture*
  • Female
  • Health Behavior
  • Herbal Medicine*
  • Humans
  • Iran
  • Medicine, Traditional*
  • Women's Health*