Background
All cultures and societies have knowledge best described as folk medicine. Although there is large overlap, the denotative and connotative definitions differ. Folk medicine often coexists with formalized, education-based, and institutionalized systems of healing such as Western medicine or Great traditional medicine systems like Ayurvedic, Unani medicine, and Chinese medicine, but is distinguishable from formalized or institutionalized healing systems.
Some examples of strong informal and to some degree institutionalized folk medicine traditions are: Traditional Korean medicine, Arabic indigenous medicine (source of Unani medicine, along with Ancient Greek medicine), Haitian folk medicine, Uyghur traditional medicine, Various African herbal folk remedies, Celtic traditional medicine (in part practiced by the Irish medical families), Japanese KampÅ medicine, Traditional Aboriginal Bush medicine, Georgian folk medicine, and other.
Use of folk medicine knowledge is not restricted within the society to those who have served an apprenticeship, undergone some sort of training or testing, or have achieved a specific social status. Theories and practices of folk medicine may influence, or be influenced by, the formalized medicine systems of the same culture.
Read more about this topic: Folk Medicine
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Pilate with his question “What is truth?” is gladly trotted out these days as an advocate of Christ, so as to arouse the suspicion that everything known and knowable is an illusion and to erect the cross upon that gruesome background of the impossibility of knowledge.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“In the true sense one’s native land, with its background of tradition, early impressions, reminiscences and other things dear to one, is not enough to make sensitive human beings feel at home.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)