Native Americans and Their Contributions to the Advancement of Health and Medicine

Pharmacist- Renaissance pharmacist did research on herb and minerals like the bark of a Quina tree which contained an ingredient called quinine which is used to treat malaria. Laudanum was an opium-based painkiller.

“The status of Indigenous health in contemporary Australia is a result of historic factors as well as contemporary socio-economic issues” (Hampton & Toombs, 2013, p. 1).

The Native American culture is the original culture of the United States. Members of Native American tribes live throughout the country. “There are an estimated 4.9 million persons, in 565 federally recognized tribes who are classified as American Indian or Alaska Native (AI/AI), alone or in combination with one or more other designated racial classifications. This demographic group compromises 1.6% of the U.S. population” (Horowitz, 2012). Wisconsin is home to the Ho-Chunk (Winnebago), Ojibwa (Chippewa), and the Potawatomi tribes (“American”, 2014). It is important for nurses within this state, as well as any other state, to understand the Native American belief system in order to provide a quality healthcare experience. Nurses are the primary point of contact in the healthcare setting. Client advocacy is one of the nurse’s major roles. Therefore, the nurse should have the highest level of diversity understanding for the cultures within the local region.

erosion of the Aboriginal culture.(chp.2). Restrictions placed on the cultural practices of the Aboriginal people ultimately led to the abatement of the Aboriginal traditional medicines.(p88). Losing their freedom to practice traditional therapeutics, the Aboriginal people eventually had to adapt to the culturally inappropriate ways of western medicines. The purpose of this paper is to examine the advantages of Aboriginal healing methods for the Aboriginal people, as well as to explain why these traditional methods continued to persist long after western style medicines were introduced.

Native American culture refers to the term medicine as “the essence of life or an inner power” (Portman & Garret, 2006, p.454). It is believed that each person has their own essence that is locked in a physical form “our body” and this way they can learn in body, mind and spirit. To be able to understand the roots of Native American traditional medicine, it is important to

In this essay the writer will discuss the colonisation of Australia, and the effects that dispossession had on indigenous communities. It will define health, comparing the difference between indigenous and non- indigenous health. It will point out the benefits and criticism of the Biomedical and sociological models of health, and state why it is important in healthcare to be culturally competent with Transcultural theory. The case study of Rodney will be analyzed to distinguish which models of health were applied to Rodney’s care, and if transcultural theory was present when health care workers were dealing with Rodney’s treatment plan.

Healthcare is an ever changing entity with an ever changing population of clients. In current day 2016, the United Sates has become a melting pot of many different cultural backgrounds, which has led to changes within the system to accommodate the patient base. Unfortunately, not all changes have been able to effectively reach any and all persons from every background. We still see language and cultural barriers that have direct correlation to the inability to seek healthcare and or the ability to change cultural perspectives to ensure healthy lifestyles. Within this paper, the health of American Indian and Alaskan Native populations will be discussed along with the barriers to care and the

Everyone gets sick and throughout generations they find ways to handle the symptoms. The ways that people define and decide to treat their illnesses depend on their culture. The Native Americans have developed their own ways to handle their illnesses. Their techniques should be incorporated more into modern medicine; this would improve the way modern medicine is practiced.

Did you know heart disease is the leading cause of American Indian deaths?4 Heart diseases is the most common disease in the United States of America and they can be cured from proper care. There is a statistic stating that 36% of American Indians who have heart diseases are 15% more likely to die before the age of 65 compared to Caucasians.4 Recently, in the Statistical Fact Sheet 2015 Update it states, “Among American-Indian men ages 45–74, the incidence of CVD ranges from 20 to 28 per 1,000 population. Among women, it ranges from 9 to 15 per 1,000”. As it can be seen that there are a lot of people who are dying from cardiovascular diseases in both male and female.7 American Indian nations have always showed the most mortalities because of heart diseases.

Medicines were mostly produced to cure diseases. Back in the 1600s scurvy and malaria were huge problems that needed to be dealt with. As mentioned in previous paragraph malaria was treated by the bark of the Cinchona tree and is still used today. “The bark of the Cinchona tree (called quina quina by the indigenous Peruvians), found in the rain forests along the Amazon River in the Andes of South America, contained an ingredient called quinine, which is still used in the treatment of malaria, a disease transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito and one of the oldest plagues of mankind” (Cassell, Dank K., and Cynthia A. Sanoski). This shows that achievements made back then are still important to this date. Scurvy was a disease caused by vitamin deficiency, but that was not known back then. Jacques Cartier is a French explorer whose crew got infected with scurvy. Jacques and his crew came in contact with an Iroquois tribe in the New World, who knew how to cure scurvy. The women of the tribe would use juniper needles and bark to make a tea and use the leftover tea to wash the affected person’s leg. Juniper needles and bark contain a lot of vitamins the human body needs, so when the affected person drank the juniper tea they got all the vitamins they lost back in turn curing scurvy. Poisons also had reasons why they were needed. Hemlock and aconite are deadly poisons

Despite placing their roots in American soil long before any explorers or settlers, Native Americans experienced centuries of despicable treatment by society. And throughout history, continuing into the present, Native American populations are repeatedly neglected, mistreated and disregarded as inferior and insignificant aspects of American society. This disturbing trend has likely contributed to the reality that one fourth of Native Americans in the U.S. live in poverty as of 2015 (Bureau, 2015). There is a wide margin of variability in this statistic due to the immense deficit of thorough research collected about Native American populations. Assignment to reservations in adverse living conditions by the U.S. government, no doubt influenced the continuous health disparities Native American populations that persist. Disparities bleed into the Bureau

It is truly said that improving health of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders is the longstanding challenge for the Government (Australian Human Rights Commission 2007). Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders experience poor health, they are more prone to get cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, physical inactivity and obesity as compared to non-indigenous Australians (Department of Health and Ageing 2012, p. 6). The gap between the health status of indigenous and non-indigenous people is relatively high, therefore it has been identified as a concern for the community and the Government (Australia’s Health 2014). Social determinants play an important role for the community, for both indigenous and non-indigenous population (Australian

Galen’s medical research was only directed and focused towards animal anatomy, with his observations on animal bodies. Furthermore, his research results in irrelevance and ineffectiveness for the human body. The Renaissance period was an important historical event, as within this time, many new and exciting discoveries were made. Islamic physicians shared their understanding of anatomy and their herbal remedies in which other physicians added to, which resulted in better, more effective cures. Asia brought cures too, such as Quinine, which is used as a preparation in the treatment of Malaria and it comes from the bark of Quina Trees. Another example of anatomical research from Asia is Laudanum, which is based on opium. Laudanum, was used a painkiller in which the use of, spread quickly. Paracelsus, a Swiss-German physician discovered a cure for the deadly disease Syphilis. His cure involved taking measured doses of mercury compounds internally. Another key person in the medical developments of the Renaissance period was William Harvey, an English physician. He was the first person to understand the whole system of blood circulation in the human

What do we know about prehistoric medicine and what are the problems with the evidence?

They are very similar. Both used chalk for heartburn, calamine for skin irritations, and cinchona bark for fevers. Later, apothecaries found out that cinchona bark contained quinine for malaria, and quinidine for cardiac problems. But medical treatment was very expensive, so that led to the colonists to self-diagnose and treat their own problems.