Medicine before the Westerners :: Native Americans Health Medical Essays

Medicine before the Westerners Try to imagine the status of medicine before in North and Central America before westerners arrived here. The savages, as the Europeans often referred to them, were lucky to survive with their primitive ways. They lived in what was thought to be primal conditions, what could they offer the civilized settlers from Europe. They couldn’t have any knowledge of medicine not and live in these conditions. Certainly many settlers would have thought how much the indigenous peoples of North and Central America could have learned from them. That notion was wrong. Although the settlers thought of these people as primitive they did quickly note their good health. Some of the earliest European settlers were impressed by the robust stamina of these people in every locality. There was little evidence of disease among the Indians and it was uncommon to find fatal cancer, tuberculosis, or heart disease until modern times. There were no legends of great sickness among the Indians, of course this wasn’t true for the Europeans quickly the black plague comes to mind to mention one such epidemic. Yet given all of this it is an interesting fact, there is little written or taught, even today about the Indian medicine or the history of Indian medicine. There are no great legends of Indian medicine taught. Yet we all have heard of the earliest teachings of Hippocrates, the oath of the modern day medicine men (doctors) is named in his honor. There are others though the real story is that these savages were a wealth of knowledge about medicine. They became a resource for the settlers and were not given credit for their contributions. Although I believe even if they had been given credit, that at the time they would have just stated that the credit went to nature. The fact that their cures were derived more from nature may have been in part able to account for a great benefit that went with Indian medicine; there were few, if any acute side effects. The Cherokee’s based their concepts on medicine on their earlier meanings of the four cardinal directions and the universal circle.