Medical beliefs of pre-literate and pre-historical peoples made little Research Paper

Medical beliefs of pre-literate and pre-historical peoples made little logical sense - Research Paper Example The societies in the past believed in supernatural and natural ways of curing and treating diseases. This means that, some diseases were believed to originate from supernatural evil spirits, sorcery or gods while others were believed to originate from the society (Lalita, 1984, p. 80). The medicine men in those days believed that the evil spirits were fabricated by sorcerers, and this could hamper a person’s body and result to illness. This spirits could only be removed from a person through the skull and not from any other body organ because they believed that the spirits were held in the brains. Among many other treatments done to the people possessed by the spirits, ‘Shaman’- the medicine man was supposed to trephine the skull (Edited Guide Entry, 2001). Today, anthropologists have developed an intimate understanding of the beliefs, that the society could not invent medicines and drugs to cure and heal the diseases. This is because the treatment of the diseases was not based on body tests of the sick, but from the beliefs. This made the victims to be subjected to treatments that they did not deserve, and hence was a serious threat to their survival. Some treatments like trepanning, which involved drilling of holes into the human skull to expose the ‘dura mater’, are extremely crucial to the anthropologists and scientists. They can clearly understand the era or the human evolution stage and hence understand the number of years that the place was inhabited. However, such practices have been used as a benchmark for developing safe human skull surgery by scientists (Dayrit et al, 2003, p. 89). From the studies done in the past by the anthropologists, it is evident that different ailments and diseases that were common in the prehistoric period are not prevalent today. Diseases like osteoarthritis were caused by lifting heavy materials, which