h a l f b a k e r yThe embarrassing drunkard uncle of invention.
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In developing countries, traditional medicine is still popular because it is much cheaper than the more effective modern medicine.
Despite this, I think we can improve the standard of 'traditional medicine'/witchdoctors, (as it can be hard to convince poor country folks that traditional medicine is
not really all together that effective, when modern medicine can cost them many months worth of pay)
My idea is to have an organization that interviews all witchdoctors on the plants they use, and try and match it with its modern equivalent modern medicine. The information is then complied into a book, and distributed to all witchdoctors, (and also to normal doctors, to give poor patients a cheaper alternative they can buy off a 'witchdoctor').
Again, traditional medicine will not always be more effective than modern scientific method, but as people are using it regardless for its cheapness. We might as well help them improve their method.
PLACES THIS METHOD CAN BE USED: India, as it is a developing country, with lots of traditional medical providers.
PubMed even has a couple of papers
http://www.ncbi.nlm...9&cmd=DetailsSearch
Wherever there's connection to internet, post, or civilization [lurch, Jun 06 2010]
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Then maybe we should promote this book too all doctors/witchdoctors in developing countries, free of charge. |
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Perhaps customized, for the type of plants that exist in... say india. |
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You have got to be kidding me. We do talk to each other you know. We also have dirty great conferences with papers and so on. |
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herbal and traditional medicine is a heavily studied subject. one of the biggest consumers (and often times supporters) of such research is big pharma, because the medicines/techniques occasionally do work and can potentially contribute to marketable "modern" medicine. |
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nevertheless a pamphlet handed out to aboriginal "witch doctors" in undeveloped countries pointing out that each 300mg ASA tab is equal to a square foot(?) of willow bark might go a long way towards establishing a Kwik-E-Mart in every village. After you teach them how to read. |
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[ ] there's some stuff in there I like, but I'd be more interested in keeping people from making endangered species more so. Start a rumour that it isn't actually the powdered rhinoceros horn, but the spittle from the guy who collects it, that is the active ingredient in the concoction. |
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The Hocus Pocus Manual + (Not widely known to
exist to me.) |
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Photos for National Geographic. |
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I probably ought to mention the placebo effect. |
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Some of the "effectiveness" will come from cultural
belief in the medicine man. We probably benefit
from some of that effect due to our beliefs in our
own medicine and our own physicians too - even if
we might have been misdiagnosed and treated. |
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I'd probably recommend that people study the
anthropology and mysticisms connected with local
tribes, such as the Tea Party in the US, before we
decide to look at "more backwards" people. |
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[A] I may be misreading your anno, but this is a simple translation from "manufactured drugs" to "field drugs"; I don't read any cultural snobbishness. |
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[FT] //cultural snobbishness// Your point is well-taken but
[Akimbomidget] could go some way towards defusing
[Aristotle]'s implied criticism by omitting the term "witch
doctor." That's just based on my own notion of the
connotations of that term, but Wikipedia seems to support
it: it seems that a "witch doctor" (unlike, e.g. a sangoma or
a shaman) is a quack. |
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Good luck finding a non-pejorative term for "aboriginal-practices healer". Since such practitioners are at least stereotypically also the local priest, they get stomped on with the conqueror's religion. (My background has the word "shaman" at the same weighting as "witch doctor") |
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[19th]... got anything to make the crops grow faster ? |
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I tend to feel that the primitive nature of mankind
remains fairly constant, even in supposedly
advanced cultures. We are all human after all. |
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Codifying traditional medicine, and expecting it be
consistent, would be as challenging (and as
impossible) a task as codifying conspiracy theories.
It also could be equivalently hard to get those
corresponding people to adopt conventional,
"modern" viewpoints. |
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After all how would the religious right in the Bible
Belt feel if people came up with a book to explain
why contraceptives and the theory of evolution
might be some considerable use for them? I tend
to believe there might be some friction ... |
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A recent study of health in the developing world
discovered that selling soap in small enough
quantities for the poor to be able to buy it, and
advertising it's use, was probably the most
effective way to raise health standards there. |
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Sometimes you have to think and act laterally. |
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