ABSTRACT
Among the recently discussed evolutionary issues on medical systems, one of the most controversial issues is the replacement of local medical systems with the biomedical system. Our study investigates the hybridization of two medical systems and the role that the perception of incidence and severity of diseases has in memorization and transmission of information about their treatments. We collected data from a rural population in Brazil during two different periods separated by eight years and compared the periods for changes according to the knowledge on treatments with drugs in the biomedical system and according to the incidence and severity of the diseases. We found 147 medicinal plants belonging to 58 botanical families. Our results show that biomedical and local systems complement each other and change over time for the cure of recurrent, instead of the most severe, events. We suggest that based on cultural biases, biomedical and local knowledge can coexist by complementing each other with regards to the range of resources used for healthcare, and that disease perception can guide the evolutionary path of medical systems. Our findings can help elucidate new biases that guide the evolution of medical systems and reinforce important issues in the healthcare literature.
Keywords:
cultural evolution; cultural selection; evolutionary ethnobiology; intermedicality; local medical systems