A Short Note On 25 / 2016 Mesoamerican Medicine - 1590 Words

Erin Catherine Welch Ms. Browsh World Cultures 4/25/2016 Mesoamerican Medicine As the institutes across the world progress in the fields of medicine, they still advance in the same manner as the ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica. The outlook on medicine was made more scientifically relevant throughout each of the Mesoamerican civilizations, Mayan, Incan, and Aztec. Each tribe had a different view when it came to the topic of medicine, but for the most part they utilized herbal ingredients and other natural remedies. Today, when we think of medicine we picture ground-breaking treatments in hospitals and labs filled with 3-D printers of organs and centrifuges spinning the latest vaccines. In the times of tribesmen and hunter-gatherers, the perception of medicine was quite different. These people believed that the body, the physical being, and the soul, the spiritual being, were meant to be treated as a whole. Therefore, they were convinced that healing the soul would consequently cure the body of all ailments and vice versa. They did not have the knowledge th at we possess today but they still managed to step forth into the frontier of healthcare with their beliefs and nature by their side. The three primary Mesoamerican tribes believed that illness was a result of the way people lived out their lives spiritually, and the practitioners of the era relied on herbs and rituals for cures. The Mayan culture believed illness arose