Uyghur Medicine in Practice: a Study in Khotan
Mattohti, T.
Collegium Antropologicum 39(2): 433-436
2015
ISSN/ISBN: 0350-6134 PMID: 26753461 Document Number: 681890
In Xinjiang, China, health-seeking behaviors among the Uyghur are not restricted to visitation to doctors of modern medicine because traditional Uyghur medicine is at their disposal as well. As Xinjiang's southernmost city, Khotan is a thriving center of Uyghur medicine, bolstered by a Uyghur Medical College, a marketplace specializing in the trade of Uyghur drugs, and an assemblage of skilled Uyghur doctors. The author conducted a study in Khotan on issues of etiology, diagnosis, and treatment in the practice of Uyghur medicine. Uyghur medicine is sustained a cultural model of illness that continues to define medical choices among the Uyghur people today. This paper focuses the question of how this cultural model of illness is manifested in etiology, diagnosis, and treatment.