Traditional Medicines

Alternative medicine is any practice that is put forward as having the healing effects of medicine, but is not based on evidence gathered with the scientific method.It is any of a wide range of health care practices, products and therapies, using methods of medical diagnosis and treatments which, at least up to the end of the twentieth century, were typically not included in the degree courses of established medical schools teaching medicine, including surgery, in the tradition of the Flexner Report or similar.1 In the hierarchy of healers and specialists in Philippine folk medicine, the albularyo may be referred to as the “general practitioner,” knowledgeable in most of the folkloric modalities, usually especially versed in the use of medicinal herbs. The hilot ambiguously refers both to the manghihilot and magpapaanak. The manghihilot specializes in techniques and treatments applicable to sprains, fractures and muskuloskeletal conditions. The magpapaanak, besides prenatal visits and delivering babies, often performs the suob ritual. Somehealers limit their practice of folkloric therapies to

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine
more specialized modalities. The mangluluop specializes in diagnostic techniques, usually referring the patients after diagnosis to the albularyo, medico, or manghihilot for definitive treatments. Most of these healers consider their healing craft as God-given, a calling from a supernatural being, and consequently, their healing practices are profusely infused with prayers and religious rituals, performed through mediation with the Holy Spirit2 In the rural areas, its use is in the purview of the albularyo for a variety of febrile conditions, a child’s incessant crying or failure to thrive. The TAWAS is used to ‘cross’ (sign of the cross) the forehead and other suspicious or ailing parts of the body while prayers are being whispered (bulong). It is then placed on glowing embers, removed when it starts to crack, then transferred to a small receptacle of water. As it cools, its softened form spreads on the water surface and assumes a shape that may suggest the cause of the illness, often one of several indigenous forces: dwarfs, devils or other evil spirits (na-nuno, na-kulam, na-demonyo). The water in the vehicle is then used to anoint the ailing part or parts of the body to counteract the evil forces or illness. The tawas is then discarded and thrown westward, preferably into the setting sun.

2 http://www.stuartxchange.com/Albularyo.html
3 http://www.stuartxchange.com/Tawas.html

Some started their healing craft as albularyos, medicos or hilots. Although their healing ways differ, they share an attribution of their healing power to a higher being – often, a gift bestowed on them by the Holy Spirit; or, that they are merely healing mediums of the Holy Spirit. Most remembers a divine encounter, a mystical experience, or in their childhood or early adult life, a spiritual possession or being “entered” by a being, and a life thereafter, being guided into the path of healing. On one end of the spectrum of faith healers, there are those like the albularyos, manghihilots and other healers, their healing rituals replete with ingredients of religiosity, icons, prayers and invocations, using the same divining ways of tawas and luop, diagnosing black elves, evil spirits, possessions and sorcery as causes of maladies, dispensing their fringe concoctions of treatments.4

Public school teachers in Zaragoza Nueva Ecija have a strong belief in traditional healers. It was observed that almost all patients seek consult first to a traditional healer. This led us into conducting a study on traditional healers. Using alternative medicine has several implications for public health. Wrong takes of drugs and its doses can lead to liver and kidney damage as well as many complications of our internal organs. Poor medication will be a rapid increase in chronic diseases. Delay diagnostic and prevention of non communicable diseases can lead to morbidity and mortality.

4 http://www.stuartxchange.com/Albularyo.html#FaithHealers
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
This study entitled “ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE, AS PERCIEVED BY ZARAGOZA NUEVA ECIJA PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS, IT’ S IMPLICATION TO HEALTH.” Basically, this seeks to answer the following questions:
1. What is the profile of the respondents in terms of
a. Age
b. Gender
c. Religion
d. Occupation(title)
e. Number of children
f. Current Marital Status

2. What are the effects of alternative medicine to the public school teachers of Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija? 3.1 Advantages
3.2 Disadvantages

3. What are the reasons why do these people patronize traditional medicine? 4.3 Aspects of Religious beliefs
4.4 Aspects of Culture
4. What are their perceptions regarding faith healers?
5. What is the implication to health?
IMPORTANCE OF THE STUDY
To us students. By conducting this study, we shall learn about the roots of traditional healing, where did the belief come from and how was it developed. We will be able to differentiate the beliefs and practices that are beneficial or harmful to patients so as to determine if there is a need to correct or reinforce. To the respondents. It is important that we correct misconceptions regarding traditional healing, to prevent them from being confirmed, and from generating further misconceptions. It allows us to respect each other’s views considering that we live in a diverse world.

SCOPE AND DELIMITATION
The scope of our study is for the school public teachers of Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija who and perceived albularyo as their alternative forms of treatment. We have a total of 80 respondents, 24 teachers are from Zaragoza National High School, 12 teachers from Sto.Rosario (Y) Elementary School, 12 teachers from F.B. Mesina Elementary School, 12 teachers from Don Cirilio B. Acosta Elementary School, and 20 teachers from Zaragoza Central School . This study does not cover any private school teachers in Zaragoza, Nueva Ecija.

DEFINITION OF TERMS
The following terms are defined to enrich understanding of their usage. 1. Alternative medicine- is any practice that is put forward as having the healing effects of medicine, but is not based on evidence gathered with the scientific method. 2. Purview- the scope of operation or concern of something 3. Rural area- is a geographic area that is located outside cities and towns. 4. Surgery- is an ancient medical specialty that uses operative manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition such as disease or injury, or to help improve bodily function or appearance. 5. Teacher- is a person who provides education for pupils (children) and students (adults). The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. 6. Urban area- is characterized by higher population density and vast human features in comparison to areas surrounding it. 7. Zaragoza – is a third class municipality in the province of Nueva Ecija, Philippines. The Municipality of Zaragoza is located at the southern edge of Nueva Ecija bordering the town of La Paz, Tarlac which, due to its proximity, is more closely economically coherent with each other.

CHAPTER 2

Review of Related Literature

FOREIGN LITERATURE

Around the time of the Revolutionary War (1775-1783), medical doctors were not considered to fulfill major societal roles. In fact, the practice of medicine was seen as more of a part-time avocation due to the fact that the majority of citizens labeled as “doctors” also took on full-time occupations such as judge, magistrate, farmer, or merchant. This left little room for private or hospital practice, and as a result, midwives and lay practitioners took care of most medical matters including births, injuries, and illness through the use of herbal medicines and teas, salves, emetics, and purgative medicines.

Yet, by the beginning of the 19th century, conventional medicine was beginning to grow. Young men left family businesses, apprenticeships, and clerkships to pursue medicine in prominent colleges around the U.S. Eventually, the use of full-time medical professionals far outweighed the use of midwives and lay practitioners.

Despite the growing popularity of the medical profession, patients often labeled conventional medical practices as expensive, imprecise, and dangerous. In response to these concerns, a number of citizens formed the Popular Health Movement (PHM) during the 1830s and 1840s.

PHM supporters sought to alter conventional medical practices by incorporating and emphasizing some of the ideas that midwives and lay practitioners had long used to heal their patients. These included herbal remedies, proper nutrition, clean water, exercise, disease prevention, the body’s innate ability to heal itself, and health education.1 Complementary and alternative medicine is a broad domain of healing resources that encompasses all health systems, modalities, and practices and their accompanying theories and beliefs, other than those intrinsic to the politically dominant health system of a particular society or culture in a given historical period. CAM includes all such practices and ideas self-defined by their users as preventing or treating illness or promoting health or well-being. Boundaries within CAM and between the CAM domain and that of the dominant system are not always sharp or fixed.2

1 http://www.medaus.com/index.php?view=article&catid=2%3Atest-area-2&id=23%3Athe-history-of-complementary-and-alternative-medicine-in-the-united-states-and-beyond-&option=com_content&Itemid=24 2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_medicine

LOCAL LITERATURE
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils (children) and students (adults). The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional qualifications or credentials from a university or college. These professional qualifications may include the study of pedagogy, the science of teaching.1 A study of alternative medicine in the Philippines is, inevitably, a study of the origins of its people and the amalgam of cultures and influences: Centuries of Spanish colonial rule and the indelible consequences of its religion, hundreds of years of trade with China and assimilation of its healing arts, tribal and provincial diversities with its profusion of folklore and mythologies, all redounding into the Filipino’s easy disposition for superstitions and the allure for the esoteric, mystical, and fringe. Certainly, western medicine prevails – in the metropolitan areas, with its heart centers and hospitals plush with the accoutrements of modern medicine, in the provincial capitals and cities equipped with the diagnostic machineries essential for the commerce of mainstream medicine. But for the majority of the rural poor – including the

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teacher
urban-suburban poor – there are the chronic crippling economicdisabilities that make mainstream health care unaffordable, often accessed only as a debt-inducing last resort.
For so many in the rural areas, health and healing are consigned and relegated to alternative forms of treatment: hand-me-down herbal concoctions or some form of rural alchemy; prayer-based folkloric therapies; a visit to the faith healer; a consultation with the albularyo or hilot with their bagful of indigenous modalities, dispensing treatments often spiced with a bulong, orasyon or occasional doses of pharmacy-based therapies.2 The number of faith healers in the Philippines is uncertain; a community in flux, uncountable. They may easily number over ten thousand, many known only in the locality’s word-of-mouth directory, preferring to practice in the anonymity and isolation of their deep rural habitats. Only a small number practice bare-handed surgery; and of these, only a handful considered “outstanding.3

2 http://www.stuartxchange.com/AltMedIntro.html
3http://www.stuartxchange.com/FaithHealers.html
CHAPTER 3
Method, Procedures and Sources of Data

This chapter involves the methodology, research instrument, the sources of data and the statistical treatment of data. METHOD OF RESEARCH

The researchers used the descriptive method in this study. A descriptive research is a study that describes the nature of the phenomenon under investigation after a survey of current trends, practices and conditions. Descriptive studies involve analysis of an extremely broad range of phenomena, the result of such analysis are a comprehensive presentation and interpretation of statistical tabulations of data of yield by a survey.1 SUBJECT OF THE STUDY

The respondent of the study were the 24 teachers of Zaragoza National High School, 12 teachers of Sto.Rosario (Y) Elementary School, 12 teachers of F.B. Mesina Elementary School, 12 teachers of Don Cirilio B. Acosta Elementary School and 20 teachers of Zaragoza Central School Their perceptions regarding the effects, advantages and disadvantages of alternative medicine in their life is being discussed.

1 Crestita Barrientos-Tan., A Research Guide in Nursing Education, 4th Edition., copyrighted in 1997, 2003, 2006, pg 262 SAMPLING PROCEDURE

The researcher will use the simple random sampling wherein the selection of samples on random basis from a sampling frame. Each element has an equal chance or probability of being chosen as subject of the study.

STATISTICAL TREATMENT OF DATA
Statistics is one way of getting the information’s organized. To have a general view of the whole scenario of the study, statistical tool is used. This also includes the scaling system, which is used by the proponents as a technique to monitor the respondent’s interpretation of facts.2 After the distribution and collection of the instrument, the responses are tallied by using the frequency, mean, weighted mean and ranking. Below are the Formulas used to arrive to the computation used by the Statistical Tool:

2 http://www.scribd.com/doc/11757473/Thesis-Chapter-2-3-Final

Where
n = number of respondents who are perceived pseudoscience
T = total number of respondent

Mean = F(X1 + X2 + …… Xn)
n

Where:
F = Frequency that a given X was chosen by the respondents
X = Represents any of the numerical ratings 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 represents, excellent, very good, good, fair, poor n = Total number of respondents

Weighted mean
WM = TFV
N

Where:
TFV= stands for total frequency value
N= stands for the total number of respondents

The response options were assigned could be determined with equivalents and scale below:

ValueScaleInterpretation
13.50=aboveVery dissatisfied
22.50-3.49Dissatisfied
31.50-2.49Satisfied
41.49 -belowVery satisfied