ANTH 1120 Lecture 13: ANTH 1120 - Emergence of a New Discipline
8 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
ANTH 1120
January 15, 2018
The Emergence of a New Discipline
Review of Last Week
● Medical anthropology;s place within the discipline
● Relationship of anthropology to other disciplines
○ Epidemiology
○ Public health
○ Illness and behaviour
○ Community based participatory research
● The biocultural perspective
○ Innate understanding, that culture and health shape our wellbeing
History of Medical Anthropology
Ties to Physical Anthropology
● Evolution, adaptation, comparative anatomy, racial genetics
● Overlapping interests with medical doctors (ex. Forensic and preventative medicine)
○ DNA Analysis
○ Forensic Anthropologists are still relied upon to study bones (Legal And
Medical binding of Anthropology)
○ Rudolph Virchow - first medical anthropologist.
● Broader definitions of disease processes (ex. Influence of migration, colonization,
and urbanization)
○ Historical events have left their mark on the bodies and biology of Indigenous
peoples
● Created norms and standards for human development (the ideal body)
○ Nutritional Anthropology have a sense of the norman height and weight of
children, can tell if a child is malnourished in a poorer country
Ethnographic interest in “primitive medicine,” including witchcraft and magic
● Subdivision of ethnomedicine derived from interest in non-Western medical systems
● How did this culture create the medical rationales
● “Primitive” medicine was seen as foolish, superstitious
● Ethnomedicine
○ (Old Definition) Practices relating to disease, products of Indigenous cultural
development, not explicitly derived from the conceptual framework of modern
medicine
○ Don’t adhere to wester science or natural laws, or the way Western society
believes in healing methods
○ We create an either or dichotomy with this definition
○ Western medicine can be viewed as an ethnomedicine (study of scrubbing
down before surgery, doesn’t eliminate bacteria, more of a ritual or symbolic
value)
Document Summary
Innate understanding, that culture and health shape our wellbeing. Forensic anthropologists are still relied upon to study bones (legal and. Historical events have left their mark on the bodies and biology of indigenous peoples. Created norms and standards for human development (the ideal body) Nutritional anthropology have a sense of the norman height and weight of children, can tell if a child is malnourished in a poorer country. Ethnographic interest in primitive medicine, including witchcraft and magic. Subdivision of ethnomedicine derived from interest in non-western medical systems. How did this culture create the medical rationales. Primitive medicine was seen as foolish, superstitious. (old definition) practices relating to disease, products of indigenous cultural development, not explicitly derived from the conceptual framework of modern medicine. Don"t adhere to wester science or natural laws, or the way western society believes in healing methods. We create an either or dichotomy with this definition.
