Traditional Medicine and Health Care in North East India

Type a description for this product here...The present book interrogates the belief-systems of illness aetiology and its medical practices thereby providing baseline data on knowledge to allopathic doctors and medicines for the evaluation of health programme. Allopathic practitioners are always laced with problems while providing health services to the poor in rural areas. The problems ranged from distrust among allopathic doctors because of their way of approach lacking social references, cultural component such as language barrier and also the belief in supernatural entities. While supernatural entities has been playing significant role especially in illness and fortune among the Tangkhuls, they are fiercely opposed by scientific communities considering as superstitious, irrational and obscured. This book focused on traditional folk medicine among the Tangkhuls. The WHO mentioned that around 90 percent of population in underdeveloped societies avail health services from traditional source while the data provided by NFHS 3 report a minuscule of 0.8 percent. This contradictory result indeed yielded confusion on the study of traditional medicine. The reason why Tangkhuls prefer traditional medicine is of course due to reliability, efficacy and affordability. The book will be highly useful for all those interested in folk and traditional tribal medicine apart from Scientists, Sociologists and Anthropologists.

R.K. JEERMISON (b. 1980) received Ph. D from the Center for the Study of Regional Development, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and currently serving as an Assistant Professor in Oriental College, Imphal teaching Statistical and Human Geography. He has contributed articles in various Journals of repute and edited a book. He has specialisation in Population Studies and Social Geography and interested in Health Care Services and Religious Practices in Tribal Societies.