Black Folk Medicine: The Therapeutic Significance of Faith and Trust

Wilbur Watson

Transaction Publishers, Jan 1, 1998 - Social Science - 136 pages

Folk medicine is an important informal and traditional system of social health care support that is still wisely used in many nations including rural regions of the southern United States. This volume provides new insight into the various conditions and structures that help to account for the development and persistence of folk medicine in societies. The authors focus on older, primarily female, black users of folk medicine; the problem of trust in folk and modern doctor-patient relationships; the need for communication and information exchange between folk and modern medical doctors; and a variety of social, cultural, and psychological factors related to drug misuse among the poor, the elderly, rural and uneducated consumers of health services.

Contents

• Introduction: 1
• Aging Illness and Traditional Medicine in Ghana: 17
• Doctor Cant Do Me No Good Social Concomitants of Health Care Attitudes and Practices among Elderly Blacks in Isolated Rural Populations: 33
• Pharmacists in Jamaica Health Care Roles in a Changing Society: 41
• Folk Medicine and Older Blacks in Southern United States: 53
• Poverty Folk Remedies and Drug Misuse among the Black Elderly: 67
• Ozark Mountain and European White Witches: 71
• Central Tendencies in the Practice of Folk Medicine: 87
• Afterword: 99
• Glossary: 101
• Bibliography: 105
• About the Contributors: 115

Popular passages

Page viii - There tends to grow up about a status, in addition to its specifically determining traits, a complex of auxiliary characteristics which come to be expected of its incumbents.‎

Page vii - ... culture, as an incidental part of his everyday associations. Folk medicine is usually well integrated with other elements of a folk culture and is reinforced by them. The expected attitude toward a given element of folk medicine is one of uncritical acceptance. Failure does not invalidate a practice or shake the belief on which it is based. A remedy is tried, and if it works no surprise is evinced, since that is what was expected. If it does not work, the failure is rationalized and something...‎

Bibliographic information

• Title: Black Folk Medicine: The Therapeutic Significance of Faith and Trust
• Editor: Wilbur Watson
• Publisher: Transaction Publishers, 1998
• ISBN: 141281877X, 9781412818773
• Length: 136 pages
• Subjects: Medical / General; Social Science / Ethnic Studies / African American Studies; Social Science / Folklore & Mythology