Home-based medicines
Women have long played a pivotal role in healing in Indigenous societies. Traditional women-led practices of home-based medicines are remedies that are prepared at home using ingredients found in their natural state and used to treat a wide range of illnesses. The knowledge, skills and practices are often passed down through the generations and are based on the beliefs and experiences of the cultures in which they are used (see “Traditional medicine,” 2023, for more on this).
It is common for women to be the primary producers of traditional home-based medicines, especially herbal medicines made from leaves, roots, bark or flowers. Herbal medicines include herbal teas to treat colds, headaches and digestive issues; poultices that are applied directly to the skin to treat rashes and insect bites; herbal tinctures made by soaking herbs in alcohol or vinegar; and oil infusions made by soaking herbs in oils. They can be used to treat a variety of ailments, such as anxiety, insomnia, digestive issues, skin irritations and other ailments.
Many people still use these medicines as alternatives to industrialised medicines and see them as a way to protect their environment from the threats caused by unsustainable lifestyles (see Dahlin & Svensson, 2021, for more information).
Traditional medicine is available in many parts of the world. For many people who live far from public health centres, it plays an important role in their culture and health. Lack of access to public or government maternity care is one major reason for the use of traditional medicine among pregnant women. The knowledge and use of traditional medicine contributes to the conservation of trees and plants and to biodiversity.
More than 80 per cent of the world’s population uses traditional medicine. It is also the foundation for many modern medicines and practices. Almost 40 per cent of approved pharmaceutical products come from natural substances. Watch the video Bringing Ancient Wisdom and Modern Science Together by the WHO Global Centre for Traditional Medicine to find out more.
Reading
Dahlin, J., & Svensson, E. (2021). Revitalizing traditional agricultural practices: Conscious efforts to create a more satisfying culture. Sustainability, 13(20),11424. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132011424
Traditional medicine. (2023, 25 December). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditional_medicine.
Licence: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence 4.0
Activity
Identify one traditional medicine in your country. Ask questions in your community to help you identify the ingredients and methods used for making the medicine and what disease or illness it is used to treat. The facilitator may ask you to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of some traditional medicines.
