Georgian folk medicine
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Georgian folk medicine (or Georgian traditional medicine) originated at the crossroads of the East and West and therefore integrates the principles of both medical traditions. On a scale between tribal level
folk medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the ...
and highly institutionalized Ayurveda,
Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of ...
and
Unani Unani or Yunani medicine (Urdu: ''tibb yūnānī'') is Perso-Arabic traditional medicine as practiced in Muslim culture in South Asia and modern day Central Asia. Unani medicine is pseudoscientific. The Indian Medical Association describes U ...
traditional medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the ...
s, Georgian traditional medicine ranks closer to the better institutionalized and formalized end of the scale. Some ancient Georgian
folk remedies Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the ...
made it to the modern formulations and are commercially distributed in the form of modern drugs, mostly
petrolatum Petroleum jelly, petrolatum, white petrolatum, soft paraffin, or multi-hydrocarbon, CAS number 8009-03-8, is a semi-solid mixture of hydrocarbons (with carbon numbers mainly higher than 25), originally promoted as a topical ointment for its he ...
-based ointments.


Background

Anthropological data suggest that
Paleolithic The Paleolithic or Palaeolithic (), also called the Old Stone Age (from Greek: παλαιός ''palaios'', "old" and λίθος ''lithos'', "stone"), is a period in human prehistory that is distinguished by the original development of stone too ...
Cro-Magnon Early European modern humans (EEMH), or Cro-Magnons, were the first early modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') to settle in Europe, migrating from Western Asia, continuously occupying the continent possibly from as early as 56,800 years ago. They ...
people that dwelt on the territory of modern western Georgia may have known of some sort of primitive ointment made from animal brains mixed with fat. Classical
Greek mythology A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...
suggests that ancient Kolkhs (
Colchis In Greco-Roman geography, Colchis (; ) was an exonym for the Georgian polity of Egrisi ( ka, ეგრისი) located on the coast of the Black Sea, centered in present-day western Georgia (country), Georgia. Its population, the Colchians a ...
people) had practiced somewhat highly developed medicine that must have impressed the Mycenaean Greek (
Minyan In Judaism, a ''minyan'' ( he, מניין \ מִנְיָן ''mīnyān'' , lit. (noun) ''count, number''; pl. ''mīnyānīm'' ) is the quorum of ten Jewish adults required for certain religious obligations. In more traditional streams of Jud ...
) travelers at the time. Some historians of medicine suggest that the modern medical scientific principle "Contraria contrariis curantur" (opposite cures the opposite) dates back to ancient Kolkhs and their healer and sorceress princess
Medea In Greek mythology, Medea (; grc, Μήδεια, ''Mēdeia'', perhaps implying "planner / schemer") is the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis, a niece of Circe and the granddaughter of the sun god Helios. Medea figures in the myth of Jason an ...
, acquiring its final form in the classical Greek and eventually in the modern medicine. Georgian popular tradition even attributes the origins of the term Medicine solely to Medea's name. In fact, the term likely stems from the Indo-European root MA and MAD, “and its more familiar hypothetical form MED, meaning to think or to reflect, to give a consideration or care to”. Still, a possible relation between the name of Medea and the term Medicine cannot be decisively denied.


History

Beginning of the recorded history of Georgian traditional medicine should be related to the first almanac of medical remedies and medical knowledge written in the 11th century, known as “Ustsoro Karabadini” (Georgian: უსწორო კარაბადინი). After that, different compilations thereof, as well as original fundamental works, all mostly under similar titles (with the exception of the influential 16th-century medical encyclopedia titled "Iadigar Daudi" - Georgian: იადიგარ დაუდი, and a few more), were published once or twice every 100 years until the end of the 19th century. These works, along with the unique local remedies, also include knowledge influenced by the ancient Greek, Byzantine, and Central Asian and Middle East medical traditions. The highly developed feudal social structure of Medieval Georgia led to the emergence of traditional Georgian medical families (not too unlike the better known
Irish medical families Irish medical families were hereditary practitioners of professional medicine in Gaelic Ireland, between 1100 and 1700. Overview Professional medical practitioners in the Gaelic world of Ireland and Scotland was mainly the preserve of a small n ...
), one of which, the Turmanidze family (Georgian: თურმანიძეები) is first mentioned in historical documents somewhere on the turn of the 10th and 11th centuries. So great was the clout of the bearers of Turmanidze family traditions even in the twentieth century that some representatives of the family who lacked any formal education were nevertheless granted medical licenses by the Soviet officials, who were generally very adamant about disallowing traditional medicine methods in the official Soviet medicine.Turmanidze medical family (Georgian: თურმანიძეები) :ka:თურმანიძეები. Georgian.


See also

*
Traditional medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the ...
*
Alternative medicine Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility, testability, repeatability, or evidence from clinical trials. Complementary medicine (CM), complementary and alt ...
*
Folk medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) comprises medical aspects of traditional knowledge that developed over generations within the folk beliefs of various societies, including indigenous peoples, before the ...
*
Georgian people The Georgians, or Kartvelians (; ka, ქართველები, tr, ), are a nation and indigenous Caucasian ethnic group native to Georgia and the South Caucasus. Georgian diaspora communities are also present throughout Russia, Turkey, G ...


References

{{Traditional medicine Healthcare in Georgia (country) History of ancient medicine Traditional medicine