Medical Systems and Vital Energy

 VITAL FORCES:

Throughout various cultures the concept of substances which ebb and flow as a consequence of life forces are described and managed to maximize the health and well-being of communities and individuals. These competing forces necessarily interact in the human body (microcosm) and in the universe (macrocosm)

• Ndembu (Turner): describes three forces
• white rivers (milk & semen)
• red rivers (blood and loss of blood-particularly menstruation)
• black rivers (death, waste, decay)
• Flow, Fluidity and Flux are important processes for health & healing in African cultures, Papua New Guinea, India, China and ancient Greece.
• based on the belief that the flow of substances in the natural environment and the human body is needed for survival, wellness and healing.
•  Harm comes from the stoppage of this flow or "flooding"
• path to longevity is the MIDDLE WAY
• modern medicine : "homeostasis" (state of internal balance attained by living things regulating their physiological processes-sweating on a hot day, restricting capillaries when it is cold)

• HUMORS (vital fluids that a culture recognizes are fundamental aspects of life)
• must be kept in balance (often by consuming certain foods and liquids)
• notions of hot/cold/cool are key to understanding humoral activity-as are Wet/Dry
• activities, weather changes, emotions all can deplete or restore vital fluids
• MELPA (png): 2 humors (blood & grease)-form two separate but interconnected sources of vitality which must flow freely and be exchanged appropriately for health & harmony to be maintained.
• can be depleted in people and communities
• a man uses up his grease through intercourse, a woman through regnancy and breastfeeding-must be replenished by consuming pork fat and juicy vegetables
• optimal conditions for health are found in balancing the "hot" and "cold" in "cool" (fair minded-cool- actions of a chief provide grease for the community, eg)
• pigs are exchanged between families to restore group harmony
• The flow of drinks, food, gifts and commodities and the essential and complex functions of these circulations establish and maintain strong social bonds in all cultures and societies.
• KULA RING (ti)
• MAWRI (Niger): the health of a market depends on the the presence of "spirits" who protect it and animate it by their presence. The flow of material and spiritual gives RAI (life) to the market.
• INTERNET (markets) need "traffic" to be healthy in this same way.

• INFORMATION TRANSMISSION:
• in small scale, mostly oral societies, information was transmitted traditionally for elders and ritual specialists to their apprentices. This mostly took the form of valuable CULTURAL KNOWLEDGE and ENVIRONMENTAL KNOWLEDGE.
• these traditional flows of information have been supplanted by formally trained professionals, mass media, and the internet in modern times
• instead of learning from their mothers and grandmothers, women are turning to lactation specialists, books, websites etc in order to gather information about breastfeeding and childcare (ie)
• RUMORS:
• The developing world, health and illness
• subject to rumors which reflect the INEQUALITY of access to QOL.
• high quality, high tech medicine is unaffordable and a tightly guarded resource accessible only to the rich (small portion of the population)
• the world in which poor people live is composed of alternative opportunities and risks which they are unable to control-why RUMORS are so powerful (reflects the feelings of COMMODIFICATION OF THE BODY)
• organ stealing (all over)
• kidnapping (Guatemala)
• poisoning with vaccines
• commodification of the body of the poor for the rich through western medicine (can the POOR really be said to "donate"?)
• organ transplantation (DONATION)
• there is a global shortage in all human tissues and a "wait list"
• cultural construction created because of a number of factors including denial of death, biotechnological progress and social inequality
• poor people are fearful that their death will be hastened or provoked (flow of organs goes from poor to wealthy transnationally-Nancy Scheper-Hughes & margaret Lock)
• see themselves as a collection of spare parts
• stem cells (LACKS cells)
• surrogate mothers
• adoption
• fertility
• donated egg/sperm
• research subjects as human guinea pigs
• blood banks (DONATION?)
• a woman donating twice a week in central Mexico may earn more than her husband
• hair (Hindu pilgrims to the Tirumala temple in Andhra Pradesh donate their hair to Vankateswara-sold for millions of dollars annually for hair weaves in the West)-REMY HAIR

WATER: VITALITY & CONTAMINATION

• Bodies of water (Nile, Euphrates, Ganes & Jordon Rivers) are considered SACRED
• purification by babtism (Christian)
• holy well visitations in Ireland (cures a variety of illnesses including headaches, abdominal pain, warts, whooping cough, sore throats & eye problems).

• Water can be used for HEALING and RITUAL PURIFICATION in many cultures
• Hippocrates: baths for healin
• Judaism: Mikvah for purification
• Public Mineral baths : japan, Rome, Turkey-important part of social and cultural life
• Rainmaking rituals : Egypt, Native Americans, Rural Romania (Parapuda)

• Water is a great FORCE OF NATURE (may be unpredictable & uncontrollable)
• floods, storms, drowning, sunami
• contamination and carrier of disease (typhus, yellow fever, parasites, environmental toxins & bacteria)
• modern fact: shortage of clean drinking water
• Apache: White Painted Woman-culture hero emerges from water
• women are often associated with water and cycles of the moon that are connected to the movement of tides and cycles of fertility. 
• female water spirits are the source of danger and disease in many cultures-particularly for men (Mermaids)
• MAMI WATA: female serpent deity found throughout the African diaspora-giver of prosperity beautiful but also life-threatening

• Water in HUMORAL SYSTEMS
• commonly seen as an element in wet/dry dyad that needs to remain balanced
• Chinese medicine
• associated with the yin/yang principle
• YIN: contractive, centripedal, responsive, positive, cold, wet, female)
• YANG: expansive, centrifugal, demanding, negative, hot, dry, male)
• health: life force (qi/ki/chi) must be allowed to flow unimpeded or restored through various therapeutic methods, especially foods and herbs, but also acupuncture. 
• yin and yang are integrated. they contain a seed of eachother, and the whole is essentiial

• Feng Shui: Spaces and interiors can also be imbalanced and effect health. Uses colors and objects along with laying out interiors according to the cardinal directions to create greater harmony, health and prosperity).
• the human being is an integral part of nature and subject to the same natural laws

• Ayurveda
• Islamic Humoralism
• Greek humoralism

• FOUCAULT (Water and Medical Treatment)
• several mental illnesses were treated with water immersion and showers in the 18th century in France

• cold water (hydrotherapy)England

MODERN PRACTICES
HOMEOPATHY:

• Homeopathy was a flourishing practice originating in 19th century Europe and gaining international scope, especially in India where it has many affinities to Ayurveda (traditional Indian medicine)
• founded by German physician SAMUEL HAHNEMANN it provided a gentle alternative to "heroic" medical practices of the day
• Medical material: thousands of substances from plant, animal, mineral and even disease sources which are diluted until virtually undetectable. The more the remedy has been diluted, the longer and deeper it acts and fewer doses are required
• The physician chooses the remedies that mirror the symptoms experienced by the sufferer, aiding the healing process rather than suppressing the symptoms.
• key principle/techniquess:
• principle of similars (like cures like)
• principle of infinitesimals (greater dilutions have deeper effects)
• techniques of preparation:
• potentization (multiple dilutions)
• succession (firm striking of the vial against a leather pad or palm of ones hand)
• WATER is used to DILUTE the active ingredient multiple times until only the energetic signature or "memory" of the original substance remains in the fluid. For solid preparations, lactose is used.
• Administered based on CONSTITUTION (body type)
• determined through an elaborate interview based on a person's physical, emotional, mental and social experiences
• PURPOSE: TO RESTORE THE vital force (energetic and informational)-based on the understanding that WATER, plants, animals, minerals, chemical substances, textures, colors, sounds, behaviors, thoughts, emotions and life circumstances are complexly intertwined through webs of homeopathic relationships
• REMEDIES: (can make their own remedy out of any substance)
• minerals
• plants
• animals

 ENERGY, LIFE-FORCE & THE POWER OF THE SUN

• VITAL FORE?ENERGY plays a key role in tradional and alternative medicine
• Qi -chinese medicine
• Prana-
• Ki-
• Chi-
• traditional notions of the sun include the divine giver of life
• positive benefits include vitamin D absorption, bone development, bone pain, and bone loss.
• epidemic low levels in northern hemisphere
• MS? Autism? internal cancers? (more common in Norther latitudes)
• versus skin cancer and other negative effects (Western)
• SUNLIGHT VITAMIN is highly contested in Western medicine

COSMIC ENERGY & MATTER

• only acknowledged this relationship in the West since Einstein (E-MC2 )
• Recognized in many traditional cultures & healing traditions
• KUNG! San of sub-Saharan Africa---30,000BP
• Indian Ayurveda  (Chakras)--4000BC

• Energy manifests itself in many forms and can be seen in ENERGY MEDICINE
• where energy loss manifests as illness, practitioners will use various methods to restore balance, store, or replenish the energy of a person, particular organs, or unblock energy flow using particular points and channels of the patient's body.
• Energy medicine is seen with suspicion in the West-hard to substanciate, measure & explain with "science"
• Reiki
• chakra balancing
• thai massage "heated hands"

NOURISHMENT & HEALING

• much of what is promoted as cutting edge alternative medicine in terms of the relationship between what is consumed and health, is elsewhere time tested ancient knowledge
• KUNG!-highly variant/diverse diet-105 edible plants consumed regularly
• INUIT- oily sea mammal protien (Omega 3)
• Nutricional variety decreases while chronic and epidemic illnesses become increasinglycommon as FOOD PRODUCTION and ANIMAL DOMESTICATION become widespread-10,000 BP
• food producers claimed more fertile areas and hunters and gatherers were marginalized.
• worst mistake in human history???
• sanitation issues with sedintary life and growing populations
• crowd/communicable diseases
• lowered nutritional value of domesticates
• decreasing variety in diet to reliance on monocrop
• poor nutricion
• chance of starvation from famine/blight

•  Industrialization initially brings improvement in the flow in of resources and out of waste 
• decreases in child mortality and increased life expectancy and reduced birth rates
• followed by increases in "DISEASES OF CIVILIZATION" 
• diabetes, asthma, allergies, auto-immune disporders
• bacteria resistant viruses, particularly among marginalized & institutionalized populations
• market capitalism creates increased social inequality
• processed high fat and carb foods
• increased low wage labor
• subject to resistant diseases

• Dietary choices are not easily changed for they mark group identity (ethnicity), being in a special state (pregnancy), or a particular kind of relationship (Shabbat, Passover, Communion)
• take advantage of all that is available in an indigenous environment
• tend to be nutrious and balanced dites
• may require ample processing to remove toxins, etc.
• bitter manioc
• blow fish
• drying, smoking (less perishable)

• All cultures have TABOO FOODS
• pregnancy
• kosher rules (contaminated pork)
• Mary Douglas -animals that did not fit into per-existing categories
• marvin harris- pigs not suited to living in arid environments-do not sweat
• Brahmanic vegetarianism (sacred cow)
• Marvin Harris-need for protection of oxen for draft animals

• Colonialization and Westernization lead to the replacement of local food sources and traditions with imported Western-made or Western-style items like macaroni, sodas, and potato chips, while local plant relaxants and beverages supplanted by cigarettes and alcohol.
• native modes of subsistence are threatened by property lines (land rights)
• epidemics (sedentary living-reservations)
• industrial pollution
• factory/wage labor
• conflict in values

FOOD MOVEMENTS IN THE USA

• date back to 1910(discovery of vitamins)
• 1940 food rules and pyramid established
• counter cultural movements of the 1960s-ALTERNATIVE CONSUMPTION MOVEMENTS IN THE DEVELOPING WORLD- against fast-food corporate food culture
• raw foodists
• health food movement
• organic food movement
• no GMO movement
• veganism/vegitarianism
• ecological, humane, health, spiritual
• gluten-free
• slow food
• freegans
• zero carbon footprint-avoid purchase-dumpster diving
• locovores--promote local "artisinal" producers, promote sustainability
• permaculture
• humans need to return to growing their own food-create sustainable designs for living and food production---heal the earth
• urban gardens & green spaces, self-sufficiency
• vertical gardens and "green walls
• HUMERAL MEDICINE & TRADITIONAL FOODS
• food as medicine
• FOUR HUMORS of ancient Greeks were forces which needed to be kept in balance and proportion for health to be maintained or restpred. these forces were connected with bodily fluids, times of day, seasons, stages of life and personality traits
•  EARTH-mucus, phlegm, night, winter, 
• AIR-black bile, melancholy, evening, autumn, late middle age
• WATER-blood, morning, spring, childhood, youth
• FIRE-yellow bile, mid-day, summer, adulthood
• TASTES and FOOD
• childhood, safe foods...salty & sweet
• bitterness commonly associated with medicinal properties
• SPICES: antimicrobial properties (hot climates, meat dishes)
• Fermented foods: probiotic-antimicrobial effects-fight cancer, most are inedible if unfermented
• raw, unpasteurized food provide important microbes
• Case Study: ELTA (Romania)
• promotes raw, lacto-vegitarian, locally grown diet believed to be essential for spiritual growth, social healing & human evolution.
• people are sickened and anesthetized by modern life & diet regimen cures modernity
• healing movements seem most prevalent when people feel lost, dislocated or in times accelerated social change or upheaval.
• utopian communal groups
• critical view of society is characterized in a demanding regimen, charismatic leader, messianic ideals, apocalyptic interpretation of current history-replaced by a community of the awakened.