Native American Healing Traditions Could Supplement Modern Western Medicine

Mr. Andy Natonobah, a Navajo medicine-man, described the ceremony used for healing. The ceremony was passed down for generations in his family for the cure of Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome. The ceremony uses inotropic herbs in high dosages (A Description of a Navajo Healing Ceremony for Hantavirus, 2001). The purpose of the inotropic herbs is to increase the contractility of the heart muscle to prevent the hypoxia which comes from the buildup of fluid in the lungs. Capsicum, blue cohosh, ephedra, Pau d’Arco, and gentian would have been available to the medicine-man in previous years. These herbals have known inotropic properties (Dharmananda, 2003). Navajo medical beliefs concur with public health recommendations for preventing the disease (Frequently Asked Questions: Hantavirus and Zika Virus,

Native American medicine is an umbrella term that encompasses the healing beliefs and practices of all the indigenous people of North America. Its' therapeutic approach combines spirituality, herbalism, and magic in treating a wide range of physical and emotional ailments from the common cold to depression.

Stories of Native Americans contributions to the advancement of health and medicine traces were discovered in a small town in Nali, Africa. The very first onset of the beggining of modern pharmacology is the substance called "quinine". This is the substance that came from a bark of a tree that grew in high elevations. The Indians has been using this substance to cure malaria, cramps, chills, hear-rythm disorders and many other ailments. Prior to the disovery of quinine, the old world suffers enormously because the lack of medical knowledge that the old world posess. Quinine would have probably been introduce somewhere in 1630, as it was mention in

Since many Native Americans (American Indians; Indigenous peoples; First Nations) integrate traditional healing practices with Western biomedicine, it is important to gain the views of Indigenous men healers. This is particularly true because of the differences between Indigenous healing and Western

A majority of cultures and communities in Africa use plant based traditional medicines for treating and preventing illnesses and ailments. In African cultures ethnomedicine as well as traditional medicine aims not only to alleviate and reduce symptoms, but to restore the balance of the body. The balance of the body includes mental, physical, and spiritual body balance. African Ethnomedicine is a system that applies centuries of knowledge and science to assist the human body to restore the immune system back to or for an overall better health and well-being. It works because it helps the body by self -healing and counteracting the physical symptoms of sickness and disease. Within African ethnomedicine, there are designated individuals who treat sick patients and these individuals are known as healers. According to African ethnomedicine, there are three main classes of traditional healers. First, there is a group called the herbalists which are the healers with profound knowledge of plants, herbs, and natural resources used as medicine. Secondly, there is another group of herbalists, but in addition to herbal practices, they participate in supernatural and occult practices. Lastly, there is a healer group that consists of the shrine/cult priests who have some herbal knowledge, but tend to operate as forms of media or agents of deities from which they have received directions regarding

The physician-patient relationship has greatly evolved in the twenty-first century when compared to previous centuries in which the Hippocratic Oath and not patient’s rights was the forerunner of the medical system. The shift to a balanced physician-patient relationship has entailed more rights for patients, such as less abortion restrictions and physician-assisted suicide. As patients obtained more medical rights, individuals explored more nontraditional medical practices as a way to heal. As a result, alternative medicine gained a lot of traction. However, homeopathy, a prominent alternative medicine treatment, has received a great amount of resistance. Within this practice doctors believe the use of “large doses of a

Although traditional medicine may not have a complex scientific origin, many treatments are supported by a millennia of observation, modification and experience. Due to its proven effectiveness and lower price tags, traditional medicine can be utilized to relieve the costs of health care and poor

Herbs and alternative treatments have been used for centuries in different cultures as medicine and in religious practices. In ancient China traditional medicine was a compilation of centuries of knowledge. However, "Öprofessional jealousy and competition resulted in little sharing of empirical knowledge gained by practitioners who saved it to pass on to a few selected

Diseases occur as a result of supernatural powers, such as witches, idols and ancestral spirits. The traditional healer must use herbal concoctions and invoke the ancestral spirits or deities in order to treat diseases…

There is a lot of controversy around whether you should use alternative medicine to deal with a health issue or whether you should stick with Western Medicine.

Advanced medicine has it’s advantages, but the medicine today mimics the characteristics of plants used to help people way before man-made treatments. Herbal remedies don’t have many of the side effects drugs have today. Looking into the roots of herbal medicine can make modern medicine more effective, safer, and healthier for generations to come.

When it comes to traditional medicine, it doesn’t always work and there isn’t always a scientific reason to prove it. There is no perfect medical solution in our world. When traditional medicine fails patients, many physicians believe that prescribing alternative forms of medicine is more harmful than not prescribing them at all, due to the supposed lack of evidence of their effectiveness. In this case, patients have no other options for treatment. However, research has shown that there is a significant amount of evidence that supports the effectiveness of alternative medicines. Alternative medication therefore should be presented to these in dire need as a legitimate and potentially effective form of treatment.

Medicine practices and traditions varies so widely among different cultures. Western medicine for instance is based purely in science and illness usually are caused by germs, poor diet, or even DNA. On the other hand, traditional medicine usually involves cleanings, prayer, or herbal treatments for illnesses that may be caused by bad spirits, punishments from god, curses, or guilt for doing something wrong. There are also many types of approaches to healing people in the traditional cultures, which can be broken into two categories, Natural Traditions and Magico-Religious Traditions. Natural traditions view illnesses as being caused by biological or stress-related phenomena, poor habits or punishment from god and treatments usually involve the use of herbs to provide remedies or going to church regularly. Magico-Religious Traditions view illnesses as a result of bad or evil spirits, and can be treated through the use of ancient rituals, exorcisms, pilgrimages and prayer (Spector, 2004).

In the present day, medical practice has been regarded as dichotomized in the sense that, they are either categorized as “conventional or alternative” hence their medical backgrounds and respective practitioners many times are dependent against each other. A close observation shows that these categorizations are subjective and not made to conflict. Conventional medicine have formerly been known to utilize natural resources while home remedies have for a long period been prepared using a boost of untested value as they are administered without professional supervision or prescription (Hassed, 405).

Because of its popularity, convenience and affordability, more than 80% of the people in the area continued to trust on it for their health care desires (WHO, 2003). Introduction of modern medicine unaccompanied does not sufficiently provide for the inclusive or fundamental health care requirements of developing countries. Subsequently in many societies the practice of instantaneous use of traditional and western medicine continues. Indeed it is always been problematic to reach deprived people with development support, particularly in health care where most possessions benefit the middle classes in urban hospitals. Thus traditional medicine is frequently the only reasonable and available form of health care (Patwardhanm, 2005). Many modern drugs have their origin in ethnopharmacology (Cox and Balick, 1994). A survey of pharmacopoeias of established and emerging countries was done to determine whether ethnobotanical evidence did indeed lead to valuable drug discovery.