Heaps of health, metaphysical fitness: Ayurveda and the ontology of good health in medical anthropology.
Curr Anthropol
; 40 Suppl: S43-s56, 1999 Feb.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-11623594
Because most scholars take it for granted that medicine is concerned with healing and problems of ill health, the way in which various medical systems define good health has not been adequately studied. Moreover, good health as such is usually regarded as a natural, normative state of being even by most medical anthropologists, who otherwise take a critical, relativist perspective on the subject of illness, pain, and disease. Using the case of Ayurvedic medicine, this article shows that there is a very different way of looking at the question of how health is embodied. This perspective is proactive and concerned with overall fitness rather than reactive and primarily concerned with either illness or disease. The argument presented here therefore seeks to go beyond the limiting--although extremely useful--orientation of remedial health care and suggest a radical challenge to some of the most basic ontological assumptions in the cross-cultural comparative study of medical systems.
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Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Filosofia Médica
/
Saúde
/
Aptidão Física
/
Ayurveda
/
Antropologia
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Curr Anthropol
Ano de publicação:
1999
Tipo de documento:
Article
País de publicação:
Estados Unidos