Ethiopian medical system

by Pino Schirripa

Around the bedside of a ill there is an extraordinarymeeting of a range of characters: one surely can see thedoctor and his assistants, but also the family, somedistant kins, the friends and – in a less visible way –other persons who give their help through infusions,herbs, prayers. In this narrow space crowd actors whichsymbolize all the bodies of a society: from the science'sofficial powers to the gloomy echoes of magicaltraditions, passing through the relations of love, interestsand alliances wich constitute the kinship

(BENOIST Jean (1993), Antropologie médicale en société créole, PressesUniversitaires de France, Paris , p. 11)

Medical system: a definition

The whole of representations, knowledge, practices, resources as well as social relationships, organizational and regulative structures, professionalism and the form of trasmission of abilities which – in a specific social and historical context – are directed towards identifiyng, interpreting, preventing and facing what is thougth as “sickness” or anyway is regarded as threatening what is considered as a “normal” healthy condition

Schirripa Pino – Zúniga Valle César (2000), Sistema medico, «AM. Rivista della società italiana di antropologia medica», n. 9-10, Ottobre 2000, p. 210

In medical anthropology the concept of medical system has been used especially with regard two very relevant issues:

a) to identify the cultural and symbolic meanings through which are organized:- the knowledge and the representations about the relationships between human beings and nature - the conceptualization(s) of sickness

b) to identify the basical elements of the different types of therapeutical practices wich can be present in a specific social context

Plural medical systems

Nowadays is not possible to find any medical system wich lay only on a specific therapeutical tradition.

In evey society there are different therapeutical practices – local or

foreigner – which compete heach other for gaining customers and legittimation

Some key concepts in medical anthropology

to investigate the medical systems

Illness, sickness, disease Disease: to be inteded as an organic or

functional damage which can be observed by the medical devices: the biomedical glance

Sickness: the social construction of a malady, that is to say the whole of representation and practices a society mobilize to cope with it

Illness: the malady as it is experienced by the “patient” and her/his domestic group

Modernity vs. tradition? Tradition is not a complex of ideology, cultural

orientations and practices which are fixed

The complex we call tradition change in the time adapting itself to the change of context

We can only define the field of tradition in opposition what we call the field of modernity

Modernity and tradition are not separate, but there are areas of intepenetrations and exchanges

Medical systems can be intended as plural from different points of view:

From the point of view of the patients (users): health seeking behaviours

From the point of view of the policy-makers: policies of integration, exclution or complementarity

From the point of view of the practitioners in the therapeutical field

From the point of view of nosological and aetiological constructions: interpenetration of different cultural paradigms, syncretisms, vernacularization

Social Suffering

Pathology is not only an individual question, but it is related to a wider social

context.To investigate this social context means to concentrate on cultural aspect as well as on the structural aspects which produce

the social conditions of patologies.

inequalities

Social suffering is rooted in the social inequalities, that is to say in the social and

economical forces which produce:Inequalities in the access to the delivery

health systemAsymmetrical power relationships

Asymmetrical gender relationships

Gramsci's common senseCommon sense is not something rigid and stationary,

but is in continuous transformation, becoming enriched with scientific notions and philosophical

opinions that have entered into common circulation. 'Common sense' is the folklore of

philosophy and always stands midway between folklore proper (folklore as it is normally

understood) and the philosophy, science, and economics of the scientists. Common sense creates

the folklore of the future, a relatively rigidified phase of popular knowledge in a given time and

place. Gramsci, Antonio, Selections from cultural

writings. London (Lawrence & Wishart) 1985, 421

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Plural medical system

Fate clic per modificare il formato del testo della struttura

Secondo livello struttura

Terzo livello struttura

Quarto livello struttura

Quinto livello struttura

Sesto livello struttura

• Settimo livello strutturaFare clic per modificare stili del testo dello schema

– Secondo livello

– Terzo livello

• Quarto livello

– Quinto livello

biomedicine

religious sector Balawi medhanit

the three sector are not completely separated

when the priests sometimes induce people not to use drugs while they are using holy water, they create a specific locus of action which defines themselves through the differentiation

from biomedicine and the demonization of traditional therapies

biomedicine is claiming his own role in the arena underlines the effectiveness of its products (the drugs) and delegitimizing the

therapeutic action of traditional remedies as well as of holy water

traditional medicine occupies its place also through the use of some specific nosologies and through the idea that it is the only

effective medicine in specific sickness