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- Title
La Etnomedicina en la Obra de José Gumilla El Orinoco Ilustrado y Defendido.
- Authors
Silva, Daniel José Sánchez
- Abstract
Indigenous traditions reveal the point of view about health and disease adopted by every culture in order to restore health and well being in members of the community. The interest of western culture by traditional medicine has been guided by its exotic aspects such as the rites, over natural forces and shaman practices. Priest José Gumilla left us with a description about treatments, diseases, plants, venoms and poisonous animals in his opus magna Orinoco The Illustrated and defended (1731). In this book he describes some rites involving women of different etnias and mention procedures and customs he considered as wild, without considering them as part the indigenous culture. These tribes thought women during menstrual period caused "dryness" of harvest, and Gumilla describes the lonely woman open field parturition practice without any help. He mentions that twin delivery was awful to the tribe and often Indian mothers decided to kill one of the twins to avoid social rejection by her partner. Gumilla describes some tropical snakes such as the "rattle" snake and the "macaurel" (probably of Bothrops genus), hematophagous insects, herpes zoster, ilariasis and male-female circumcision.
- Subjects
TRADITIONAL medicine; ORINOCO Illustrated &; Defended, The (Book); GUMILLA, Jose; CULTURE; MENSTRUAL cycle; MANNERS &; customs
- Publication
Informe Medico, 2011, Vol 13, Issue 8, p373
- ISSN
1316-9688
- Publication type
Article