Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous or folk medicine) comprises medical knowledge systems that developed over centuries within various societies before the era of modern medicine Medicine is the art and science of healing. It encompasses a range of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Practices known as traditional medicines include herbal Herbalism is a traditional medicinal or folk medicine practice based on the use of plants and plant extracts. Herbalism is also known as botanical medicine, medical herbalism, herbal medicine, herbology, and phytotherapy. The scope of herbal medicine is sometimes extended to include fungal and bee products, as well as minerals, shells and certain, Ayurvedic Ayurveda is a system of traditional medicine native to India, and practiced in other parts of the world as a form of alternative medicine. In Sanskrit, the word Ayurveda comprises the words āyus, meaning 'life' and veda,Vid meaning knowledge and Veda meaning 'related to knowledge' or'science'. Evolving throughout its history, Ayurveda remains an, Unani, Ancient Iranian The practice and study of medicine in Persia has a long and prolific history. The Iranian academic centers like Jundishapur University were a breeding ground for the union among great scientists from different civilizations. These centers successfully followed their predecessors’ theories and greatly extended their scientific research through, Siddha The Siddha medicine is a form of south Indian Tamil traditional medicine and part of the trio Indian medicines - Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani.However Lord Sri Akshunna a master of northern siddha tradition says there is use of siddha medicine in the north indian part or rather in himalayan region as jhar phuk and siddha buti tantra. This system of, Islamic In the history of medicine, Islamic medicine or Arabic medicine refers to medicine developed in the medieval Islamic civilization and written in Arabic, the lingua franca of the Islamic civilization. Despite these names, a significant number of scientists during this period were not Arab. Some consider the label "Arab-Islamic" as and traditional Chinese medicine Traditional Chinese medicine, also known as TCM , includes a range of traditional medical practices originating in China. Although well accepted in the mainstream of medical care throughout East Asia, it is considered an alternative medical system in much of the western world, acupuncture Acupuncture is a technique of inserting and manipulating fine filiform needles into specific points on the body to relieve pain or for therapeutic purposes. The word acupuncture comes from the Latin acus, "needle", and pungere, "to prick". In Standard Mandarin, 針砭 (a related word, 針灸 (zhēn jiǔ), refers to acupuncture, Muti, Ifá In traditional Yoruba culture, Ifá refers to a system of divination and the verses of the literary corpus known as the Odú Ifá presented in the course of divination. Orunmila is the deity associated with Ifa diviniation. In some instances, the name Orunmila is used interchangeably with the word Ifa. Orunmila brought Ifa diviniation to the world, and other medical knowledge and practices all over the globe.

The World Health Organization The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health Organization, which had been an agency of the (WHO) defines traditional medicine as:

the health practices, approaches, knowledge and beliefs incorporating plant, animal and mineral-based medicines, spiritual therapies, manual techniques and exercises, applied singularly or in combination to treat, diagnose and prevent illnesses or maintain well-being.^[1]

Some Asian Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 4 billion people, it accounts for 60% of the world's current human population. It is located chiefly in the eastern and northern hemispheres and African Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area. With a billion people (as of 2009, see table) in 61 territories, it accounts for about 14.8% of the World's human population countries up to 80% of the population relies on traditional medicine for their primary health care It was a new approach to health care that came into existence following this international conference in Alma Ata in 1978 organized by the World Health Organisation and the UNICEF needs. When adopted outside of its traditional culture, traditional medicine is often called complimentary and alternative medicine The term alternative medicine, as used in the modern Western world, encompasses any healing practice "that does not fall within the realm of conventional medicine". Commonly cited examples include naturopathy, chiropractic, herbalism, traditional Chinese medicine, Unani, Ayurveda, meditation, yoga, biofeedback, hypnosis, homeopathy,. Herbal medicines can be very lucrative, generating billions of dollars in sales, but adulteration or counterfeit herbs can also be a health hazard.^[1]

The WHO also notes, though, that "inappropriate use of traditional medicines or practices can have negative or dangerous effects" and that "further research is needed to ascertain the efficacy and safety" of several of the practices and medicinal plants used by traditional medicine systems.^[1] Core disciplines which study traditional medicine include ethnomedicine Ethnomedicine is a sub-field of ethnobotany or medical anthropology that deals with the study of traditional medicines: not only those that have relevant written sources , but especially those, whose knowledge and practices have been orally transmitted over the centuries, ethnobotany Ethnobotany is the scientific study of the relationships that exist between people and plants, and medical anthropology.

Classical history

Early recognised compilers of existing and current herbal knowledge were the Greeks:

• Hippocrates Hippocrates of Cos or Hippokrates of Kos - Greek: Ἱπποκράτης; Hippokrátēs was an ancient Greek physician of the Age of Pericles, and was considered one of the most outstanding figures in the history of medicine. He is referred to as the "father of medicine" in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the
• Aristotle Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) was a Greek philosopher, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. He wrote on many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology. He is generally regarded as one of the greatest Philosophers of all time and one of the
• Theophrastus Theophrastus , a Greek native of Eressos in Lesbos, was the successor of Aristotle in the Peripatetic school. His interests were wide-ranging, extending from biology and physics to ethics and metaphysics. His two surviving botanical works, Enquiry into Plants and On the Causes of Plants, were an important influence on medieval science. There are
• Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides was an ancient Greek physician, pharmacologist and botanist from Anazarbus, Cilicia, Asia Minor, who practised in ancient Rome during the time of Nero. He had the opportunity to travel extensively seeking medicinal substances from all over the Roman and Greek world
• Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus , better known as Galen of Pergamum (Greek: Γαληνός, Galēnos), was a prominent Roman physician and philosopher of Greek origin, and probably the most accomplished medical researcher of the Roman period. His theories dominated and influenced Western medical science for well over a millennium. His account

Roman writers included Pliny the Elder Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was an author, naturalist, and natural philosopher as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian. Spending most of his spare time studying, writing or investigating natural and geographic phenomena in the field, he wrote an and Celsus Aulus Cornelius Celsus was a Roman encyclopedist, known for his extant medical work, De Medicina, which is believed to be the only surviving section of a much larger encyclopedia. The De Medicina is a primary source on diet, pharmacy, surgery and related fields, and it is one of the best sources concerning medical knowledge in the Roman world. The.^[2]

Pedanius Dioscorides Pedanius Dioscorides was an ancient Greek physician, pharmacologist and botanist from Anazarbus, Cilicia, Asia Minor, who practised in ancient Rome during the time of Nero. He had the opportunity to travel extensively seeking medicinal substances from all over the Roman and Greek world included the writings of the herbalist Krateuas, physician to Mithridates VI King of Pontus from 120 to 63 BC in his De Materia Medica Materia medica is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing . In Latin, the term literally means "medical material/substance". The term was used from the period of the Roman Empire until the twentieth century, but has now been generally replaced in medical. De Materia Medica was translated into several languages and Turkish Turkish (Türkçe IPA [ˈt̪yɾktʃe] ) is spoken as a first language by over 63 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Cyprus, with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other parts of Eastern, Arabic Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages such as Hebrew and Syriac. In terms of speakers, Arabic is the largest member of the Semitic language family. It is spoken by more than 280 million people as a first language and by 250 million more as a second language. Most native speakers live and Hebrew 1United States Census 2000 PHC-T-37. Ability to Speak English by Language Spoken at Home: 2000. Table 1a names were added to it throughout the centuries.^[3] Latin manuscripts of De Materia Medica were combined with a Latin herbal by Apuleius Platonicus (Herbarium Apuleii Platonici) and were incorporated into the Anglo-Saxon codex A codex is a book in the format used for modern books, with separate pages normally bound together and given a cover. It was a Roman invention that replaced the scroll, which was the first form of book in all Eurasian cultures Cotton Vitellius C.III.

These early Greek and Roman compilations became the backbone of European medical theory and were translated by the Persian Avicenna Abū ‘Alī al-Ḥusayn ibn ‘Abd Allāh ibn Sīnā', known as Abū Alī Sīnā or Ibn Sīnā (Arabic: ابن سینا‎), and commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna (Greek: Aβιτζιανός, Abitzianos), (c. 980 - 1037) was a Persian polymath and the foremost physician and philosopher of his time. He was also an astronomer, (Ibn Sīnā, 980–1037), the Persian Rhazes Abū Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī , known as Rhazes or Rasis after medieval Latinists, (August 26 865, Rayy— 925, Rayy) was a Persian alchemist, chemist, physician, philosopher and scholar. He is recognised as a polymath and often referred as "probably the greatest and most original of all the Muslim physicians, and one of the most (Rāzi, 865–925) and the Jewish Maimonides Moses Maimonides, also known as Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon or the acronym the Rambam , was born in Cordoba, Spain on March 30, 1135, and died in Egypt on December 13, 1204..^[2] Translations of Greek medical handbooks and manuscripts into Arabic took place in the eighth and ninth centuries.

Arabic indigenous medicine developed from the conflict between the magic-based medicine of the Bedouins, the Arabic translations of the Hellenic medicine and Ayurvedic medicine Ayurveda is a system of traditional medicine native to India, and practiced in other parts of the world as a form of alternative medicine. In Sanskrit, the word Ayurveda comprises the words āyus, meaning 'life' and veda,Vid meaning knowledge and Veda meaning 'related to knowledge' or'science'. Evolving throughout its history, Ayurveda remains an.^[4] Spanish indigenous medicine was influenced by the Arabs from 711 to 1492.^[5]

Translations of the early Roman-Greek compilations were made into German by Hieronymus Bock whose herbal published in 1546 was called Kreuter Buch. The book was translated into Dutch Dutch ( Nederlands ) is a West Germanic language spoken by over 22 million people as a native language, and over 5 million people as a second language. Most native speakers live in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, with smaller groups of speakers in parts of France, Germany and several former Dutch colonies. It is closely related to other as Pemptades by Rembert Dodoens Rembert Dodoens was a Flemish physician and botanist, also known under his Latinized name Rembertus Dodonaeus (1517–1585), and from Dutch into English English is a West Germanic language that originated in Anglo-Saxon England. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries and of the United States since the mid 20th century, it has become the lingua franca in many parts of the world. It is by Carolus Clusius, (1526–1609), published by Henry Lyte in 1578 as A Nievve Herball. This became John Gerard's (1545–1612) Herball or General Hiftorie of Plantes.^[2][3] Each new work was a compilation of existing texts with new additions.

Women's folk knowledge existed in undocumented parallel with these texts.^[2] Forty-four drugs, diluents, flavouring agents and emollients Emollients are substances that soften and soothe the skin. They are used to correct dryness and scaling of the skin. They are a key component in the manufacture of lipstick, lotions, and other cosmetic products mentioned by Discorides are still listed in the official pharmacopoeias of Europe.^[3] The Puritans A pilgrim is one who undertakes a pilgrimage, literally 'far afield'. This is traditionally a visit to a place of some religious or historic significance; often a considerable distance is traveled. Examples include a Christian or Jew visiting Jerusalem or a Muslim visiting Mecca. No religion has laid greater stress on the duty of a pilgrim than took Gerard's work to the United States The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its 48 contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south where it influenced American Indigenous medicine.^[2]

Francisco Hernández, physician to Philip II of Spain Philip II was King of Spain from 1556 until 1598, King of Naples from 1554 until 1598, jure uxoris King of England and Ireland from 1554 to 1558, lord of the Seventeen Provinces from 1556 until 1581, holding various titles for the individual territories, such as Duke or Count; and King of Portugal and the Algarves as Philip I from 1581. He ruled spent the years 1571–1577 gathering information in Mexico The United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos ), commonly known as Mexico (English: /ˈmɛksɪkoʊ/) (Spanish: México (help·info) [ˈmexiko]), is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and then wrote Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus, many versions of which have been published including one by Francisco Ximénez. Both Hernandez and Ximenez fitted Aztec Aztec is a term used to refer to certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who achieved political and military dominance over large parts of Mesoamerica in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, a period referred to as the Late post-Classic period in Mesoamerican chronology ethnomedicinal information into the European concepts of disease such as "warm", "cold", and "moist", but it is not clear that the Aztecs used these categories.^[6] Juan de Esteyneffer's Florilegio medicinal de todas las enfermedas compiled European texts and added 35 Mexican plants.

Martín de la Cruz wrote an herbal in Nahuatl Nahuatl (Nahuatl pronunciation: [ˈnaː.watɬ] , with stress on the first syllable) is a group of related languages and dialects of the Nahuan (traditionally called "Aztecan") branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. Collectively they are spoken by an estimated 1.5 million Nahua people, most of whom live in Central Mexico. All Nahuan which was translated into Latin Latin is an Italic language historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Through the Roman conquest, Latin spread throughout the Mediterranean and a large part of Europe. Romance languages such as Italian, French, Catalan, Romanian, Spanish, and Portuguese are descended from Latin, while many other languages which are not descended from Latin, by Juan Badiano as Libellus de Medicinalibus Indorum Herbis or Codex Barberini, Latin 241 and given to King Carlos V of Spain in 1552.^[7] It was apparently written in haste^{[citation needed]} and influenced by the European occupation of the previous 30 years. Fray Bernadino de Sahagún's used ethnographic Ethnography gio is a methodological strategy used to provide descriptions of human societies, which as a methodology does not prescribe any particular method (e.g. observation, interview, questionnaire), but instead prescribes the nature of the study (i.e. to describe people through writing) . In the biological sciences, this type of study might methods to compile his codices that then became the Historia General de las Cosas de Nueva Espana, published in 1793.^[7] Castore Durante published his Herbario Nuovo in 1585 describing medicinal plants from Europe and the East and West Indies The Caribbean (pronounced /ˌkærɨˈbiːən/ or /kəˈrɪbiən/; Dutch Caraïben ; French: Caraïbe or more commonly Antilles; Spanish: Caribe) is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (most of which enclose the sea), and the surrounding coasts. The region is located southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and Northern America, east of. It was translated into German in 1609 and Italian editions were published for the next century.

Knowledge transmission and creation

Indigenous medicine is generally transmitted orally through a community, family and individuals until "collected". Within a given culture, elements of indigenous medicine knowledge may be diffusely known by many, or may be gathered and applied by those in a specific role of healer such as a shaman Shamanism comprises a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world. A practitioner of shamanism is known as a shaman, pronounced /ˈʃɑːmən/, /ˈʃeɪmən/, noun (pl. -man(s)). There are many variations of shamanism throughout the world, but several common beliefs are shared by all forms of or midwife Midwifery is a health care profession where providers give prenatal care to expecting mothers, attend the birth of the infant, and provide postpartum care to the mother and her infant. Practitioners of midwifery are known as midwives, a term used in reference to both women and men . Nurse Midwives in the United States (see below) are advance.^[8] Three factors legitimize the role of the healer – their own beliefs, the success of their actions and the beliefs of the community. When the claims of indigenous medicine become rejected by a culture, generally three types of adherents still use it – those born and socialized in it who become permanent believers, temporary believers who turn to it in crisis times, and those who only believe in specific aspects, not in all of it.^{[9][verification needed]} Elements in a specific culture are not necessarily integrated into a coherent system, and may be contradictory. In the Caribbean The Caribbean (pronounced /ˌkærɨˈbiːən/ or /kəˈrɪbiən/; Dutch Caraïben ; French: Caraïbe or more commonly Antilles; Spanish: Caribe) is a region consisting of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (most of which enclose the sea), and the surrounding coasts. The region is located southeast of the Gulf of Mexico and Northern America, east of, indigenous remedies fall into several classes: certain well-known European medicinal herbs introduced by the early Spaniard colonists that are still commonly cultivated; indigenous wild and cultivated plants, the uses of which have been adopted from the Amerindians; and ornamental or other plants of relatively recent introduction for which curative uses have been invented without any historical basis.^{[10][verification needed]}

Footnotes

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Fact sheet no. 134: Traditional medicine". World Health Organization The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, and headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health Organization, which had been an agency of the. 2008-12-01. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs134/en/index.html. Retrieved on 2009-05-02.
2. ^ ^{a b c d e} Kay, MA (1996). Healing with plants in the American and Mexican West. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. pp. 19–20. ISBN 0816516464.
3. ^ ^{a b c} Raphael, Sandra; Blunt, Wilfrid (1994). The Illustrated herbal. London: Frances Lincoln. ISBN 0-7112-0914-6.
4. ^ Slikkerveer, L. J. (1990). Plural medical systems in the Horn of Africa: the legacy of "Sheikh" Hippocrates. London: Kegan Paul International. ISBN 0-7103-0203-7.
5. ^ García Sánchez, E; Carabaza Bravo JM; Hernández Bermejo JE; Ramírez AJ (1990). "Árboles y arbustos en los textos agrícolas andalusíes (I)". in e Morales Ruiz Matas CA (in Spanish). Ciencias de la naturaleza en Al-Andalus : textos y estudios. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. ISBN 84-00-07727-X.
6. ^ Ortiz de Montellano, B (1975). "Empirical Aztec medicine". Science 188 (4185): 215–20. PMID 1090996.
7. ^ ^{a b} Heinrich, M; Pieroni A; Bremner P; (2005). "Plants as medicines". in Prance G & Nesbitt M. The Cultural history of plants. Routledge. pp. 205–238. ISBN 0415927463.
8. ^ Acharya, D; Anshu S (2008). Indigenous Herbal Medicines: Tribal Formulations and Traditional Herbal Practices. Jaipur: Aavishkar Publishers. ISBN 9788179102527.
9. ^ Laguerre, Michel S. (1987). Afro-Caribbean folk medicine. New York: Bergin & Garvey. ISBN 0-89789-113-9.
10. ^ Morton, JF (1975). "Current folk remedies of northern Venezuela". Quarterly Journal of Crude Drug Research 13.

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