From Disease to Holiness

Religious-based health remedies of Italian folk medicine (XIX-XX century)

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4621213
AutoresNelide Romeo (Institute of Neurological Sciences), Olivier Gallo (Institute of Neurological Sciences), Giuseppe Tagarelli (0000-0002-4792-023X, Institute of Neurological Sciences)
Año2015
Volumen11
Número1
Páginas50-50
Fecha de publicación2015-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1746-4269 • E-ISSN: 1746-4269
EditorialSpringer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1186/s13002-015-0037-z
PMID26048412
PMCIDPMC4468812
OpenAlexW1560150950
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas28

BACKGROUND: The relationship between spirituality, religion and medicine has been recognized since antiquity. Despite large differences in their history, society, economy and cultures human communities shared a common belief that spirituality and religion played an important role in the healing of diseases. METHODS: The study of religious remedies used by Italian folk medicine in order to treat diseases was based on a review of literature sources compiled between the late nineteenth century and the early to mid twentieth century. RESULTS: This approach lead to the unearthing of heterogeneous healing methods that have been divided into different categories: Saints, Pilgrimages, Holy Water/Blessed Oil, Blessings, Religious Objects, Contact, Signs, Formulas and The Religious Calendar. Some of these practices, partly still performed in Italy, are a part of the landscape of the official Catholic Church, others come out of a process of syncretism between the Catholic Religion, the magic world and pre-Christian rituals. CONCLUSIONS: The vastus corpus of religious remedies, highlighted in the present work, shows the need for spirituality of the sick and represent a symbolic framework, that works as a filter, mediates, containing the pain that constantly fills everyone's lives in remote ages even in the third millennium. All of this confirms how important the health-workers know and interpret these existential needs from anthropological and psychological points of view

Alternative medicine · Archaeology · Environmental ethics · Existentialism · Faith healing · Political science · Shamanism · Sociology · Spirituality · Anthropology · History · History of Emotions Research · History of Medicine Studies · Law · Medicine · Medicine, History, and Philosophy · Philosophy · Religious studies