World Distribution of Theories of Illness

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2396578
AutoresGeorge Peter Murdock (University of Pittsburgh), Suzanne F Wilson (University of Pittsburgh), Violetta Frederick (University of Pittsburgh)
Año1980
Volumen17
Número1-2
Páginas37-64
Fecha de publicación1980-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaTranscultural Psychiatric Research Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0041-1108 • E-ISSN: 0315-4386
EditorialSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/136346158001700102
OpenAlexW2063912126
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas57

Anthropological attention was first drawn to the significance of theories of illness in I932 by Forrest E. Clements in a pioneer paper on Concepts of Disease (University of Californiv Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 32: I85-252). This clearly demonstrated that the explanations of illness current among most of the peoples of the world have little in common with those recognized by modern medical science and relate much more closely to the ideology of primitive religion. Indeed, such scholars as Edward B. Tylor (Primitive Culture, London, I87I) have suggested that religion itself is derived from them. The reader who accepts such a view prematurely, however, is likely to form a seriously erroneous conception of primitive medicine and overlook its substantial component of sound pragmatic knowledge. In every human society countless generations have faced their health problems, like their technological problems, by trial-and-error behavior, during the course of which maladaptive responses have gradually given way to better adjustments in the normal cumulative process which we know as cultural evolution. To avoid later misunderstanding it seems advisable to underline this point by citing examples of genuine medical achievements in several of the societies we shall consider as reported by the senior author in an earlier publication (Our Primitive Contemporogries, New York

Empathy and Medical Education