Dear techsupport_ca-ga;
Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to answer your interesting
question. Here are some of the ?pros? and ?cons? of Mexican-American
folk remedies. I hope these help you in your project:
PRO:
The common use of Mexican-American folk remedies serves as a study in
and of itself, thus helping to validate some of the plants and other
components that have been heretofore undocumented or otherwise ignored
for whatever reason by medical research.
Folk medicine has been seen as beneficial in some cases, particularly
in minor illnesses and afflictions.
Folk medicine is often more effective when the psychological support
for them is present. In other words, the ordinary person's concept of
health, illness, and healing can, in some cases, have a positive
impact on the success of the remedies.
Many of the components in these ethnic fold remedies are readily
available either from local or regional vendors or occurring naturally
in the environment.
Curanderos, or healers who have knowledge of these folk remedy
components, are much more abundant in the absence of medical doctors
in poorer areas where folk remedies are prevalent. The reasoning here
perhaps is that in some instances, Curanderos are better than having
no doctor at all.
In some instances folk remedies take the form of common logic. While a
patient might ?believe? that a relatively benign chamomile tea, for
example, is helping his condition ?because? it is chamomile tea, it
may be that the significant and necessary increase in fluids that is
actually, and logically, helping his condition to improve where simple
water may also have achieved the same positive results. In these
cases, of course, the folk remedies themselves cause no harm and
promote well-being, so why not use them?
Folk remedies, quite frankly, do help meet some of the citizen?s
primary health care needs. This is a known fact, to which the World
Health Organization concurs:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs134/en/
There are some measurable economic and commercial benefits to the folk
remedy industry.
People who have strong convictions about ethnocultural health beliefs
can indeed benefit from such remedies in many cases. They can perhaps
more easily relate to these unconventional remedies, often in their
native tongue and within their natural level of cultural understanding
and education, resulting a measure of comfort and trust in the
remedies used.
CON:
Some folk remedies have been positively identified as poisonous.
What research does exist in the area has focused primarily on five or
six folk illness syndromes and on the non-herbal treatments of
?curanderos?, or healers.
?While scholars have given great attention to the ritual treatments
for such folk illness syndromes as mal de ojo, empacho, mollera caída,
susto, mal puesto, and latido, they have failed to carefully document
and explore as carefully the herbal remedies often used in conjunction
with ritual treatments.?
MEXICAN-AMERICAN HERBAL REMEDIES: AN EVALUATION.
http://herbalgram.org/naturemade/herbalgram/articleview.asp?a=915
There has been no comprehensive study of these remedies that meets FDA standards
?There are no herbarium collections focused specifically on medicinal
plants of this region, a fact which makes careful biomedical
evaluations of these herbal remedies impossible. As a consequence,
scholars and folk practitioners may sometimes have difficulty knowing
which of the many herbal remedies are biomedically efficacious, which
are not, and which ones may pose serious health hazards to those who
use them.?
MEXICAN-AMERICAN HERBAL REMEDIES: AN EVALUATION.
http://herbalgram.org/naturemade/herbalgram/articleview.asp?a=915
Studies on the various plants used in Mexican-American fold remedies
in cost prohibitive (the average cost to get a drug approved by the
FDA is between $231 million to $359 million)
The literature about folk healing in Mexico and the South Texas region
is sparse and
Remedies are easily misused, under or over dispensed, or self
administered improperly, incorrectly or for the wrong ailments.
In large part many of the components of folk remedies have not been
chemically analyzed to determine toxicity, allergic reaction or when
and whether the remedies react adversely to other known or unknown
components.
Some remedies contain varying degrees of biological properties and
without extracting those properties and applying them individually,
ALL the biological properties are administered, perhaps improperly or
inappropriately to the patient. In other words, some components for
example contain antibacterial properties that might be appropriate for
a certain malady, but also contain analgesic properties that are not
appropriate for the same malady. Used in the raw, or unrefined form,
these remedies are not always in the patient?s best interest although
some of the properties when used alone might prove beneficial.
I hope you find that my research exceeds your expectations. If you
have any questions about my research please post a clarification
request prior to rating the answer. Otherwise I welcome your rating
and your final comments and I look forward to working with you again
in the near future. Thank you for bringing your question to us.
Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga ? Google Answers Researcher
INFORMATION SOURCES
MEXICAN-AMERICAN HERBAL REMEDIES: AN EVALUATION.
http://herbalgram.org/naturemade/herbalgram/articleview.asp?a=915
STATE DEPT. OF HEALTH WARNS ABOUT DANGEROUS MEXICAN FOLK REMEDIES
http://www.doh.wa.gov/Publicat/2000_News/00-59.html
FOLK MEDICINE IN HISPANICS IN THE SOUTHWESTERN UNITED STATES
http://www.rice.edu/projects/HispanicHealth/Courses/mod7/mod7.html
CULTURAL DIVERSITY, ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE, AND FOLK MEDICINE
http://www.temple.edu/isllc/newfolk/medicine.html
SEARCH STRATEGY
SEARCH ENGINE USED:
Google ://www.google.com
SEARCH TERMS USED:
Anglo-Mexican folk medicine
Mexican-American folk remedies
Folk and Ethnic Remedies |
