VII Международный конкурс научно-исследовательских и творческих работ учащихся
Старт в науке
Народная медицина Англии и России
Автор работы награжден дипломом победителя III степени
Полная версия работы доступна во вкладке "Файлы работы" в формате PDF
Introduction
Where is the beginning of treatment with the help of different types of plants? Who is the first person or creature, that started to use herbs as one of the ways to treat own illness or sickness? Unfortunately, we don’t know the details. But everyone has seen such a picture: a cat or a dog is eating some plant among the others. It is a healing plant and an animal helps itself in this way. And that’s why people decided to use herbs for own goals.
Traditional medicine of Russia and Great Britain: what is similar and what is special?
There is a certain pattern in phytotherapy of these two countries. The biggest part of Russia and all UK territory are concentrated in Europe. This fact can explain their similarity in using medicinal plants, such as: chamomile, poppy, wormwood, fennel and others. But recording to large territory of England, there are some differences in catalogue of used herbs. A lot of wild growing plants in Russia are grown in special gardens in the United Kingdom.
Archeological researches have shown that ancient Egyptians wrote in papyrus the names of herbs and methods of using them. As for Babylonians, they used the flax seeds, young shoots of trees.
As well as roots of plum and pear trees, firs were used. And at that time ancient healers learned to dry herbs, because such way lets save healthy substances.
But we are really interested in phytotherapies of 2 countries: Russia and England. And today we are going to give a talk about it.
Task
Find out components of traditional medicine in these countries and identify and
highlight the differences and similarities of them.
Actuality
Not all people today are able to trust modern technologies in the field of medicine, and especially the population of elder generation. Therefore, they prefer to resort to the old methods, and to be more precise - to the recipes of traditional medicine. But modern medicine is undoubtedly associated with folk.
The methods of research
Interviewing
Analysis
Comparing
Studying literature on the topic
The main aims
To analyze the components of traditional medicine in both Russia and Great Britain
To learn differences and similarities of Russian and English folk medicine
To gather information about the most common ways of treating among people of different age groups
To analyze the information
Folk Medicine of Russia
In Russia, castor oil has been used for a long time in the form of injections for treating heart diseases. As an external anti-inflammatory agent, for example, the middle ear (otitis) in the form of compresses.
Since ancient times, there were native Russian methods of treatment. These ones include: bloodletting, leeches, paired, bee pollen, milk, tar, honey, which, by the way, is widely used as a cosmetic.
It is known the use of such treatments as “bleeding”, which was used in Russia quite widely in order to prevent an apoplexy. Apparently, this method regulated high blood pressure. Nowadays, this method is not used for normalization of blood pressure, as there are many other means, including various herbal teas.
Another remedy associated with collecting patient blood has recently become quite popular. This is a leech therapy. There were many disputes about the usefulness and harm of this procedure, but now in Russia whole complexes for growing leeches are built and the analyzes are carried out concerning their effect on the human body.
The well-known healing effect on a person is “Russian stoves” and “Russian baths” for colds, hypothermia, etc.
Having noticed that beekeepers rarely suffer from rheumatism, inflammation of the joints, people began to apply treatment with bee venom, pollen, glue and honey.
Blueberry is the most popular plant of the traditional Russian folk medicine, especially berries, which are used in different forms: dried, fresh and with added sugar. When it was a stomachache, people often used fresh berries, but dried berries they used in the potion.
The folk medicine also use blueberry with wild strawberry. That berry is full of vitamins, which can be found in the first one.
The most often and well treatable by traditional folk medicine’s methods illness is an eczema, although its treatment is difficult for scientific medicine.
If we look up the book written by Ivan Nosal and Michael Nosal, which are famous because of their agronomic activity, we can read a topic about their experience with a girl who had the eczema. They made a cream from wild strawberry and used it for girl’s problematic skin areas. After a while, patient’s health became better.
Another interesting plant is a lubistic. Slavs in Ukraine always appreciated it as a fielder rose (Kalina), birch, rowanberry, which were reflected in the Russian national folklore. Such name is connected with its property to charm young men. People preferred to boil lubistic’s roots and used them when there were problems with kidney, heart and intestine.
Traditional medicine of Great Britain
Treatment with the help of plants has been used in Great Britain for a long period of history. In the herbarium from about 1000 mentioned poppy, chamomile, dill, fennel, wormwood. In 1676, due to the limited supply of wild plants, the society of pharmacists organized the famous medicinal plant garden in Chelsea. Later, similar gardens were formed in other parts of England.
At the British pharmaceutical conference in 1912, it was considered to expand the crops of medicinal plants. During the First World War the delivery of medicines from Germany stopped, and in Great Britain the need in many medicinal plants (chamomile, dill, belladonna, dandelion, Valerian, digitalis, dope, Aconite and others) has increased even more. Such wild medicinal plants as tansy, common wormwood, wormwood, celandine, yarrow were introduced into the culture.
In Great Britain, Italy and other European countries a great number of plants are also used for treatment, most of which are common for phytotherapy in Russia and other CIS countries. When a cold, on the chest of a patient paper, greased with fat or goose fat is put, and it is believed that a piece of paper must necessarily be in the shape of a heart. Sniffles tried to use the benefit, making the sneezing means for predictions.
A kind of color therapy is also practiced. To prevent bronchitis some people used to wear a necklace of blue beads. It was believed that red silk thread, tied around the ring finger could help when your nose bled. Sore throats were treated with wool socks, preferably red or black color, which was tied around his neck while sleeping. Headaches were treated with relatively harmless means, for example, rubbing vinegar into whiskey. For those who wanted to get rid of migraines for a long time, helped a piece of rope from the gallows or snake skin, they were applied to the head under the hat.
Appendix 1: The table
Traditional medicine of Russia and Great Britain : what is similar and what is special?
|
similarities |
differences |
|
The biggest part of Russia and all Great Britain’s territory are concentrated in Europe. This fact can explain their similarity in using medicinal plants, such as: chamomile, poppy, wormwood, fennel and others |
Recording to large territory of Great Britain , there are some differences in catalogue of used herbs. A lot of wild growing plants in Russia are grown in special gardens in Great Britain. |
Appendix 2: The Survey
People’s opinion about folk medicine
We have interviewed one hundred people of different ages living in Kazan and some districts of Tatarstan to know their attitude to folk medicine.
Results and conclusion :
In the table, which was previously reflected in our work (Appendix 1), we’ve tried to explore the differences and similarities between two countries. From this work it is evident that in folk medicine of these two countries there is much in common (the desire to be healthy and use of folk remedies) and significant differences due to historical features and foundations.
Recording to the results of the survey among the village population and people living in the cities/towns, we can make some conclusions:
1. The majority of two types of population trust the treatment with the help of folk medicine. It can be caused by the influence of the mass-media, when people watch different programs, news, read articles, which reflect a lot of incidents, when manufacturers of medicaments lie to people.
2. Villagers recourse to the recipes of potions, teas, make compresses and creams more, than inhabitants of the city. The pharmacy is often situated far away from village. That fact explains, why using the folk medicine in emergency situations is easier for villagers.
3. The methods of treatment are different among young and elderly people. Elders prefer saving the experience of the previous generation, while young people want to be in step with the times and to seek the professional help.
List of literature
1.Л.С.Соболева, И.Л.Крылова “ЗеленаяаптекаТатарии
2. Cech, Richard A.; Cech, Sena K.; Gunter, Anne (2000). Making Plant Medicine. Horizon Herbs. ISBN 978-0-9700312-0-4.
3. Hoffmann, David (2003). Medical herbalism: the science and practice of herbal medicine (Google eBook). Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. ISBN 0-89281-749-6.
4. Garrett, J. T. (2003). The Cherokee herbal: native plant medicine from the four directions. Inner Traditions / Bear & Co. ISBN 1-879181-96-7.
5. Cowan, Eliot (1996). Plant Spirit Medicine: The Healing Power of Plants. Granite Publishing. ISBN 1-893183-11-4.
6. . http://www.medroad.ru
7. Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
8. Barnes, Joanne; Anderson, Linda A.; Phillipson, J.D. (2007). Herbal Medicines (3rd ed.). London: Pharmaceutical Press. ISBN 978-0-85369-623-0.