Global Practices | water-cure

Cross-cultural Practices

This page is dedicated to cross-cultural hydrotherapeutic practices with a view to applying an anthropological perspective. The page commences with an excerpt from a recent FEMTEC report (2015d) that provides some insight to the integrated nature of European healthcare.

Polish Thermal Treatment

Chojnowski J., & Ponikowska I., (2015). Department of Balneology and Physical Medicine, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Ludwik Rydygier Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz

'Thermal treatment as a branch of medicine applying natural resources in Poland is reimbursed by National Insurance, recognised by local authorities and regulated by state law. There are three levels of reference treatment: thermal hospital, sanatorium and out-patient thermal clinic. Every year about 600 000 patients' treatment costs are covered by National Insurance, another 300 000 pay themselves; in that number there are 40 000 foreigners. Great advantages of Polish thermal stations are well qualified medical staff, unique natural resources (not only mineral waters, but also peloids and healing gases) and beneficial climate conditions. The weak point is poor accommodation conditions in some thermal stations. The most popular profiles of treatment are muscoskeletal system, metabolic and cardiac diseases' (FEMTEC, 2015d: 29).

Japanese Onsen

This episode, from a series that explores various aspects of Japanese life, provides fascinating insights to the practice of bathing in hot mineral-rich springs (first twenty minutes). Social relations and cultural values are clearly revealed through a strict bathing etiquette. In terms of health and healing, the Onten has long been recognised for its restorative therapeutic action and is a key feature of Japanese cultural life.

Russian Banya

The Russian banya are all hydrotherapeutic practices that reflect situated socio-cultural patterns. The Russian banya, a cross between a sauna and a steam room, is an example of a centuries-old practice that has remained central to cultural life. Most homes have a dedicated banya, a small room where steam is created by heating water over hot stones. Veniks, small bundles of twigs and leaves from birch or oak trees, are dipped into cold and hot water before being used to lash the body. This stage is followed by a dip in a pool of cold water or a cold shower from a raised tub. In some places, a roll in the snow replaces water submersion. These stages are repeated several times. Reported health benefits include detoxification and rejuvenation.The immune system is boosted by the creation of an artificial fever. The commercially-run Archimedes Banya, in not-so-Russian California, provides a useful overview of hydrotherapeutic practices around the world as well as the history and health benefits of the banya.

Medical Anthropological Perspective

Hydrotherapeutic practices are often integrated into global healthcare systems although, in the UK, they tend to fall outside of the dominant biomedical model being viewed, instead, as part of the leisure industry. As a generic term, Hydrotherapy covers a variety of practices that offer an holistic approach to health, sickness and healing through techniques designed to detoxify the body, strengthen the immune system and ensure the efficiency of eliminatory organs. These techniques are considered to be a means of sickness-prevention as much as recovery and rehabilitation. Such a stance promotes pro-active consumerism and re-focuses responsibility for health and well-being on individual and community initiatives.

In many parts of the world, practices are regulated and supported by national health systems that, paradoxically, apply Western cultural beliefs and practices. For example, groups of symptoms are still labelled and treated accordingly with Western pharmaceuticals. In these cases, hierarchical power structures are maintained with designated medical experts making referrals within wider socio-economic and political systems. However, the nature of hydrotherapeutic practices render them conducive to self-referral, or self-administerable, processes. Despite biomedical reductionism and State-enforced regulatory practices, Hydrotherapy offers a system of healthcare that appears to bridge Western Biomedical and Traditional Medical models of practice. Within this integrated system, sick bodies and well bodies are not so clearly defined and healer-recipient relationships lean towards reciprocity.

Towards a social and cultural anthropology of medicine(s)

in an interconnected world: An epistemological trajectory

Hansjörg Dilger, Bernhard Hadolt (2015)

Medicine Anthropology Theory (2015)

(http://www.medanthrotheory.org/read/5734/medicine-in-context;

accessed: 24th March, 2016)

'In the context of a transnational and globally connected world, medical knowledge and practices are subject to continuous changes. Transformations in collective and individual responses to illness and health, partly influenced by demographic and epidemiological shifts, are often negotiated across regional, cultural, and social boundaries, and political and economic forces structure the transfer of medical concepts and technologies, as well as materia medica. Furthermore, the increased individual mobility of both patients and health care professionals within a context of migration and displacement is changing medical practices and knowledge. Medical tourism and mobile health care experts challenge the ‘closed nature’ of medical systems, and thus renegotiate the medical, religious, and ethical foundations of regionally developed treatments and cures. Finally, the gradual dismantling of public health care systems and the subsequent reallocation of global, national, and communal resources cause transformations in the field of medicine and health care. In many places these processes lead to a diversification and alteration of prioritization and implementation strategies in both governmental and nongovernmental politics of health and the body.'

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- Hydrotherapy -

a medical anthropological

approach to healing with water