Cultural histories ofkumiss

Tuberculosis, heritage and national health in post-Soviet Kazakhstan

Dados Bibliográficos

ID7100640
AutoresGabriel Mcguire (0009-0005-3424-9669, Nazarbayev University, autor correspondente)
Ano2017
Volume36
Fascículo4
Páginas493-510
Data de publicação2017-06-05
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoCentral Asian Survey (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0263-4937 • E-ISSN: 1465-3354
EditoraTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02634937.2017.1327420
OpenAlexW2621742954
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas32

In the nineteenth century, European doctors began to credit kumiss (fermented mare’s milk) for the apparent absence of tuberculosis among the nomads of the Eurasian steppe. As European and American medical journals published articles on the ‘kumiss cure’ and Russian doctors opened kumiss sanatoria, praise for the drink’s curative powers was wound together with romanticized images of the nomadic pastoralists whose creation it was. In Soviet and now in post-Soviet Kazakhstan, kumiss came to hold the double status of medicine and of national heritage. Yet if in the nineteenth century, the steppe was notable for the absence of tuberculosis, in the late twentieth century, it is notable for its presence: Kazakhstan, like many post-Soviet countries, is currently the site of an epidemic of drug-resistant tuberculosis. Discussions of the epidemic now tangle together concerns over the physical health of the population with concern over the cultural health of the body politic

Ancient history · Art · Economic growth · Economic history · Environmental health · Ethnology · Geography · Political science · Population · Praise · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Tuberculosis · Anthropological Studies and Insights · History · HIV, TB, and STIs Epidemiology · Medicine · Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology