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Would you trust a local medicine man if you were sick & stranded in the rainforest?

lostNfound said:
Most definitely yes. The idea to say no probably wouldn't even enter my head.
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I met a guy who I often debated online who was so dogmatic that he felt it was unethical ever to use a medicine that has not gone through western drug approval, to treat any condition ever, regardless of the consequences.

For example, during an ebola outbreak they discovered that people who got blood transfusions from survivors lived where other people had a >75% chance of death. He stated that giving somebody a blood infusion, unless part of a study would be unethical, like human testing.....never mind that its your best chance of survival with little to no chance of harm.

This is what happens when you let "scientific" dogma destroy your common sense. Logic would dictate that if a treatment does no harm and it might help, herbs or nutrition or acupuncture, why not use it?
 
^ Well, actually, he contradicted himself in his blood transfusion argument. Because a controlled study found a causal relationship between blood transfusion and survival, the treatment of the disease by blood transfusion was supported by the western approach to science.
 
It wasnt large scale enough. He said it was only anecdotal evidence, since the experiment was carried out in the field and not peer reviewed. He argued that we didnt know for sure that the blood transfusion is what lead to the recipients survival when everyone else was dying and that the experiment amounted to human testing.

It was a ridiculous argument since there is little to no harm, and these people were dying anyway, within days.....I wonder if he himself would really have declined the blood transfusion if he was dying and in pain and he heard others lived because of this experimental treatment that worked in one hospital, or if he was bullshitting me because he didnt want to concede a point.

The only other experimental therapy comes from an herbal brew that some African medicine men (Shaman is a Russian term, no natives called themselves shamans, but its as good as any other term I guess....brujo). Now they are trying to copy the chemicals from this herbal brew and make a drug out of it, and it seems to work in vitro. We are yet to see if its as effective as the whole herb crude tea in vivo.
 
Yes but i cant say for sure unless i knew what was wrong.

If it were a superficial injury like a cut then yes i would, but if it were something like internal bleeding from being crushed then i wouldn't trust some jungle boogie doctor to help much.
 
doppelganga196 said:
Yes but i cant say for sure unless i knew what was wrong.

If it were a superficial injury like a cut then yes i would, but if it were something like internal bleeding from being crushed then i wouldn't trust some jungle boogie doctor to help much.
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First of all.....are you any better trained than a "jungle boogie"? Are you a doctor?

Second, dont you think the simple fact that these people are exposed to the local illness, that despite being anecdotal, these people have experienced the local infectious diseases first hand and have had the opportunity to test the local plant medicines. Dont you think traditional knowledge counts for something when you know NOTHING about the local insects and their poison, and NOTHING about the local diseases, even if you were a doctor other than a world renowned infectious disease specialist?

Third, why are you derogatory and racist towards tribal cultures?
 
Sentience said:
First of all.....are you any better trained than a "jungle boogie"? Are you a doctor?

Second, dont you think the simple fact that these people are exposed to the local illness, that despite being anecdotal, these people have experienced the local infectious diseases first hand and have had the opportunity to test the local plant medicines. Dont you think traditional knowledge counts for something when you know NOTHING about the local insects and their poison, and NOTHING about the local diseases, even if you were a doctor other than a world renowned infectious disease specialist?

Third, why are you derogatory and racist towards tribal cultures?
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Lighten up man. Jungle boogie is in no way racist, derogatory, perhaps but it's light hearted.

I would have alot of faith in their knowlege of local diseases & infections, but if i was seriously injured i cant say i'd be feeling confident in their medical skills.
 
Sentience said:
The max-characters for thread titles is a little restrictive.

If you were stranded in the rain forest, maybe your plane crashed, and there was no chance in hell that you are going to see a doctor tonight, or even tomorrow or the next day maybe.....lets say you have sever dysentery to the point of it being life threatening and/or you have been bit by a poisoning snake, your limbs feel like they are on fire and you are dizzy with a rapid pulse.

You encounter a tribe who speaks some Spanish or Portuguese. Its reasonable to assume that they are familiar with the local diseases, they know and have experience with the local plants, and they know the local snakes and spiders and predators.

The medicine man says he can help you and save your life.

Would you accept his help, trusting him, drink down some vile tasting sludge he brewed up, allow him to apply some funky looking paste to your wounds and bandage it up with a leaf?

Would you have a degree of faith in this tribes experience with medicines based on multiple generations of anecdotal evidence passed down through oral traditions? Would you believe that this tribe knew of valuable and effective medicinal formulas despite the fact that they have not proven its efficacy to the western scientific community? If you got better and somehow managed to survive, would you dismiss it as a placebo effect or assume that placebo is always the more likely explanation in the absence of irrefutable objective proof?
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Yes, it's not like I'd be anywhere near a hospital or a medical doctor.

Trying to get to a hospital, doctor, or actual medical facility could make things a lot worse if you were bitten by a poisonous snake or had horrible dysentery and you could die in the process of trying to travel to such places.

I would not dismiss getting better as placebo since there are plants and other things in the rain forest that have been used for thousands of years to cure people from sickness and medical issues.
 
Sentience said:
The max-characters for thread titles is a little restrictive.

If you were stranded in the rain forest, maybe your plane crashed, and there was no chance in hell that you are going to see a doctor tonight, or even tomorrow or the next day maybe.....lets say you have sever dysentery to the point of it being life threatening and/or you have been bit by a poisoning snake, your limbs feel like they are on fire and you are dizzy with a rapid pulse.

You encounter a tribe who speaks some Spanish or Portuguese. Its reasonable to assume that they are familiar with the local diseases, they know and have experience with the local plants, and they know the local snakes and spiders and predators.

The medicine man says he can help you and save your life.

Would you accept his help, trusting him, drink down some vile tasting sludge he brewed up, allow him to apply some funky looking paste to your wounds and bandage it up with a leaf?

Would you have a degree of faith in this tribes experience with medicines based on multiple generations of anecdotal evidence passed down through oral traditions? Would you believe that this tribe knew of valuable and effective medicinal formulas despite the fact that they have not proven its efficacy to the western scientific community? If you got better and somehow managed to survive, would you dismiss it as a placebo effect or assume that placebo is always the more likely explanation in the absence of irrefutable objective proof?
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EVen if I weren't in this situation, yeah I would trust a medicine man in the rainforest.

Western medicine is all well and good, but so much is synthetic, and quite often when prescribed something, you're not prescribed anything for the side effects (e.g: yoghurt for side effects on your digestive system from anti-biotics).

"Alternative" medicine is usually holistic - so even if it was some goopy brew, I would trust in a medicine man, just because A) the alternative is a lifethreatening diarrhoea, and B) I speak a bit of Spanish, and could understand a small amount of Portuguese if they spoke slowly enough, therefore I could ask about the medicine I would be ingesting!

Cool topic OP!

EDIT: oh and on the placebo thing, hell no - that's ignorant as fuck. I'd try and find the name for this brew, and use it when back in the western world instead of taking Western medicine.
 
Would you trust a local medicine man if you were sick & stranded in the rainforest?
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of course, what other choice would i have? people who dismiss all medicine that doesn't come from a westernized university are ridiculous
 
If I felt that he was a real medicine man who was confident about his knowledge, I would trust my life to him. I would have better odds of survival that way.
 
Well if I was certain I'd die anyway and it was my only hope, I would. :)
if it didn't work, at least I'd have experienced shaman medicine and died in an unusual way :p
If it did work and I was fully healed, they might have turned out to be a cannibal tribe and eaten me!
There's also a very slim chance I'd find my way out of the rainforest without being nommed on by something deadly again and seeing as I can't speak any language other than English well, asking the tribespeople for directions is a no go!
So tbh, whatever way it turns out, I'd be pretty much f'd anyway! :p
 
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