Shamans and the Supernatural Notes

Exploring History - The Story of Medicine - Medicine Around the World and Across the Ages
By: Brian Ward
Shamans and the Supernatural
 
1. A Shaman is an individual who was both a religious leader and a healer.
2. Some Shamans still exist in Arctic regions, Siberia, Native North America and South America, South East Asia and the pacific Islands.
3. In West Africa they are called Medicine Men or Witch Doctors.
4. Medical treatment practiced with drugs and prayer, ointments, charms (talismans) and magical objects (fetishes).
5. Shamanism isn't organized like major world religions.  It's a collection of folk beliefs and myths.
6. They blamed Illness on the soul leaving the body which the Shaman finds and brings back.
7. They used Hollow Bones to suck poison out and sharp flints to cut the skin.
8. All Native American tribes had Shamans.
9. "The Ojibwa tribe formed secret societies and specialized in particular types of medicine such as Herbalism."
10. North American Medicine Men used the roots of the black cohosh, or squawroot as a painkiller.  Western herbalist also use these now.
 
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The Story of Medicine-Introduction

Exploring History - The Story of Medicine - Medicine Around the World and Across the Ages

By: Brian Ward

 

Introduction

 

The introduction of this book focuses mainly on the differences of Western and Eastern medicine.  It compares and contrasts it from a modern view all the way back to ancient times.  Western medicine treated symptoms and specific ailments where as Eastern medicine has always practiced the way of healing the whole body through balance.  Western medicine had very high death rates due to infection until the 1900s.

 

"Disease is a state in which the body does not function properly." Health is relative according to what your expectations are for normal life.

 

The book also mentions key dates of medical history.  Below are the ones I have chosen to research further in the near future:

• Ancient times:
• 15,000B.C. Cave paintings in France show Shamanic rituals.
• 2700B.C. Shen Nong discovers herbalism.
• 2600B.C. Imhotep describes ancient Egyptian medicine.
• c.2000B.C. Legendary date for the writing of the Nei Ching.
• c.1700B.C. Code of Hammurabi lays down laws for doctors (Hammurabi, king of Babylon)
• 1550B.C. Ebers papyrus records Egyptian medical practices.
• A.D.40-c.90 Dioscorides writes manual of herbal medicine.
• The Middle Ages:
• A.D.832 Non-Islamic medical texts are translated in Baghdad.
• c.A.D.800 Rhazes prepares his medical compendium.
• c.A.D.1000 Avicenna produces the Canon of Medicine.
• 1258 Medical texts preserved by the Arabs flow back to the West.
• The Renaissance:
• 1543 Vesalius publishes accurate illustrations of human anatomy.
• Modern Times
• 1853 Queen Victoria uses chloroform an anesthetic during childbirth.
• 1865 Joseph Lister carries out the first operation using carbolic acid as an antiseptic.
• 1961 Thalidomide (a sedative) is withdrawn after causing birth defects.

 

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