The term folk medicine refers to healing practices and ideas of body physiology and health preservation known to a limited segment of the population in a culture, transmitted informally as general knowledge, and practiced or applied by anyone in the culture having prior experience.
Folk medicine may also be referred to as Traditional medicine, Alternative medicine, Indigenous medicine, Complementary medicine, Natural medicine. These terms are often considered interchangeable, even though some authors may prefer one or the other because of certain overtones they may be willing to highlight. In fact, out of these terms perhaps only Indigenous medicine and Traditional medicine are the terms well congruent with folk medicine, while others should be understood rather in modern or modernized context.
Read more about Folk Medicine: Background, History, Use in Western Culture, Safety Concerns
Famous quotes containing the words folk and/or medicine:
“In the past, the English tried to impose a system wherever they went. They destroyed the nation’s culture and one of the by- products of their systemisation was that they destroyed their own folk culture.”
—Martin Carthy (b. 1941)
“I hold it that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical.... It is a medicine necessary for the sound health of government.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)