Home Institution
Ithaca College
Publication Date
Spring 2015
Abstract
Home medical knowledge, or knowledge of how one’s surroundings can be used to maintain and restore health, can be an important tool for health self-sufficiency in rural places as well as for the ecological conservation of important plants and natural materials. The Indian state of Kerala has a rich heritage of traditional medicine, found in the historically inter-related forms of codified Ayurveda and folk knowledge. In Idukki district, a region of Kerala nestled in the hills of the Western Ghats, rural households engage in small-scale home-gardening and agroforestry, which in addition to providing nutritionally diverse food is a source of medicinal herbs and home remedies. This study interviewed 35 households in the village of Mankulam, Idukki District regarding their knowledge and utilization of herbs and home-remedies. A total of 80 local plants and substances were identified as being used by villagers for medicinal purposes, to cure or prevent wide varieties of ailments. Families with extensive use and knowledge of home medicine also engaged in intensive home gardening practices which integrated their food and medicine cultivation. While a basic knowledge and use of at least a few medicinal plants in the home is nearly ubiquitous, more extensive knowledge of advanced remedies and plants is still present but quickly disappearing. Though a majority of families responded that they find natural remedies to be superior to Allopathic ones, many of these are increasingly relying on Allopathic medicines. Factors found to be contributing to this paradox include changing lifestyles, the convenience factor of Allopathy, and diminishing home-cultivation of medicinal plants.
Disciplines
Alternative and Complementary Medicine | Asian Studies | Community-Based Research | Community Health and Preventive Medicine | Family, Life Course, and Society | Medicine and Health Sciences | Other Medicine and Health Sciences | Place and Environment | Rural Sociology | Sociology of Culture
Recommended Citation
Gaunt, Richard, "Herbs, Home Medicine, and Self-Reliance: A Study on the Current Status of Traditional Home Medicine in Idukki District, Kerala" (2015). Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection. 2078.
https://digitalcollections.sit.edu/isp_collection/2078
Included in
Alternative and Complementary Medicine Commons, Asian Studies Commons, Community-Based Research Commons, Community Health and Preventive Medicine Commons, Family, Life Course, and Society Commons, Other Medicine and Health Sciences Commons, Place and Environment Commons, Rural Sociology Commons, Sociology of Culture Commons
Program Name
India: Sustainable Development and Social Change