Chapter 5

Question 1

What are the main subject matters in Medical Anthropology?

Answer 1

Understanding health and disease in relation to cultural patterns, dichotomies and differences, anthropological theories applied to health and healing.

Question 2

What is the disease-illness dichotomy?

Answer 2

A disease is the biological objective definition of an ailment, illness is the cultural definition and labelling of an ailment.

Question 3

What is sorcery?

Answer 3

Learned magical practice requiring words, objects and rituals.

Question 4

What is an example of a culture that practices witchcraft or sorcery?

Answer 4

Kaguru of Tanszania believe in Uhai - supernatural power of witchcraft.

Question 5

What is ethnomedicine?

Answer 5

Study of how different cultures conceptualize and treat illness.

Question 6

What are the 5 areas of ethno-medicine?

Answer 6

Ethnographic description of healing practices, comparison of ethno medical systems, explanatory models of health and sickness, health seeking behaviours, efficacy of ethno medical system.

Question 7

What is a Cultural Specific Syndrome?

Answer 7

Health problem associated with a particular culture.

Question 8

What is somatization?

Answer 8

Process when the body absorbs stress and it manifests in physical suffering.

Question 9

What are examples of culture specific syndromes?

Answer 9

Anorexia nervosa, retired husband syndrome.

Question 10

What is an ethnoetiology?

Answer 10

Cross-culturally varied understanding of health problems and their causes.

Question 11

What are culture bound syndromes?

Answer 11

Culturally-labelled disorders that may reinforce stereotypes of “wellness”

Question 12

What is an example of an ethnoetiology in Thailand?

Answer 12

Village in northeastern thailand: wooden penis out side of house to protect men from ghost attack.

Question 13

What is susto?

Answer 13

A culturally specific syndrome in Spain and Portugal.

Question 14

What is structural suffering?

Answer 14

Health problem caused by structural forces such as poverty, war, famine, etc..

Question 15

What is private healing?

Answer 15

Addresses individual body ailments in isolation.

Question 16

What is community healing?

Answer 16

Considers the social context of healing.

Question 17

What is a humoral healing system?

Answer 17

Healing based on concept of balance between elements in the body and environment.

Question 18

What is ethno-botany?

Answer 18

Use of plants as medicine.

Question 19

What are some examples of healing substances?

Answer 19

Pharmaceutical drugs, coca leaves in south america, bathing in the red sea

Question 20

What are the 5 theoretical approaches in medical anthropology?

Answer 20

Biological approach, ecological/epidemiological approach, interpretive approach, critical medical approach, applied medical approach.

Question 21

What are the main focuses of the biological approach?

Answer 21

• evolution of human diseases
• emerging infectious diseases
• diseases of transition from paleolithic to neolithic
• disease of civilization
• big three (heart disease, diabetes, cancer)
• genetic variation
• diseases bc of racial discrimination

Question 22

What is the focus of the ecological approach? What are two examples of diseases of interest?

Answer 22

Examine ecological patterns and social contexts of diseases.
Hookworm in rural china from rice farming, tuberculosis in urban areas.

Question 23

What is the interpretive approach?

Answer 23

Examining cultural variation in labelling, description and experience of health issues.

Question 24

What is an example of the placebo effect?

Answer 24

Ayruvedic healing in India.

Question 25

What is critical medical anthropology influenced by?

Answer 25

Marxism, post-modernism, and deconstructionism.

Question 26

What is critical medical anthropology.

Answer 26

Approach that looks at the local and global economic inequalities and how that affects the distribution of disease.

Question 27

What is applied anthropology approach?

Answer 27

Looks at way that that health systems can be improved in the sense of cultural sensitivity and relevancy (clinical settings and public health programs)

Question 28

What is intercultural health?

Answer 28

An approach to reduce the gaps between local and western medicine.

Question 29

What is the kuru disease in New Guinea?

Answer 29

Disease fore women were getting because they would eat the flesh of the deceased. This spread could’ve been mitigated earlier if the health systems had been more culturally aware.

Question 30

What is disease of development? What is an example?

Answer 30

Health problem that emerges bc of new economic development. Schistosomiasis in Sub Saharan African countries, women and children vulnerable to arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh.

Question 31

What is medical pluralism and an example?

Answer 31

Existence of multiple health systems in a single culture. Sherpa of Nepal.