Is traditional medicine a thousand-year hoax or a way to survive? One trouble, seven answers.

As they say in the people, here comes the frown, so, as a precaution, it is good to get a warm scarf and beware of drafts. And then, and look, in the morning you will get up, and the eye as if knocked: a cold popped out, or barley, as they say all in the same people. And here begins a fascinating treatment - an adventure! The choice is great.

• warm the swollen eye with an egg, necessarily wrapped in a colored sock!
• go to the pharmacy for ointment (modern method);
• Ask a person you trust to spit in your eye 3 times and read a verse that says where “barley” should go and what he should cut off there (the method of extreme suggestion).
• go to the reception on a newspaper ad to the wizard "Margarita Antoinovna", remove the damage (method for the desperate or curious).

Medicine or magic?
To determine your attitude to traditional medicine, you first need to understand the terminology. Currently, the role of traditional medicine in science and society is not clearly defined, so we can often observe the substitution of the knowledge actually used by our ancestors with newfangled “cosmo-bio-energy”, occultism. Here it should be clearly noted: traditional medicine aims to cure bodily ailments of a person and does not invade his spiritual world, does not work with "karma" and "cosmic channels". Traditional medicine is the experience of our ancestors, recorded or transmitted orally, obtained empirically. Whatever tambourines the ancient healer waved over the patient, the treatment was always based on theoretical knowledge about the work of the body and the properties of the healing substances. And muttering spells and rattling the amulets of juju added faith to the miracle, increased autosuggestion. There's nothing to do with cheating. Current doctors also give patients a placebo. And, you know, it helps.
Is there a need for traditional medicine in the modern world?
In the twenty-first century, the people of Africa are in the most difficult situation. Here, in the Eastern part of it, there are about 17,480 patients per doctor, in the Western part - one doctor for 14,965.
Africans. There is a huge shortage of qualified personnel. But people come to their aid. Each village has its own healer, who through the centuries carries the knowledge that you can create immunity to snake bites, periodically rubbing cobra venom into a small wound. And neuroses are treated with "shock therapy" - by placing the patient in an anthill. Internal tumors of healers are treated with micromassage of organs, European doctors do not argue with this technique. The secret of the success of the doctor lies in the vast knowledge of natural remedies, as well as in his unabashed authority. Training in the art of healing with an older healer lasts about 10 years. The doctor is an excellent psychologist, he finds an individual approach to each patient. But, at the same time, the treatment is of a public ritual nature. It has to do with the community consciousness of African peoples. The suffering person thus feels the care and support of the whole community, which has a beneficial psychological effect.
To trust or not to trust traditional methods of treatment?
In the 70s, the World Health Organization called on all African countries to use the experience of traditional medicine in conjunction with the development of modern methods of treatment. Only a combination of methods and the exchange of experience can achieve success in curing patients in Africa.
Before I go to the pharmacy for ointment, I'll warm my eye with an egg. Whether to let spit in your eyes, decide for yourself who believes in what. But Margarita Antoinovna will not call: expensive takes, and frightening something.

Christina Janko