The practical logic of Amhara traditional medicine
Young, A.
African therapeutic systems: 132-137
1979
Document Number: 495853
The persistence of traditional medical beliefs and practices after modern medicine has become available has puzzled numerous investigations. A study of the Amhara, Christian peasants of northern Ethiopia, showed that many Amhara do not believe that the obvious successes of Western medicine contradict the assumptions of traditional medicine, nor do they think that, taken as a whole, Western medicine constitutes a more efficacious system than traditional medicine does. It is pointed out that the Amhara attitude is "rational" because it is consistent with their assumptions about the real world and because its practical consequences are consistent with the events of the real world. The persistence of traditional Amhara medicine if approached through the Western notions of what relevant medical facts are, how they are related to one another, and what sorts of questions we can legitimately ask about them is difficult to understand. It must be viewed with an understanding of the cultural position of the Amhara.