The Nepalese traditional concepts of illness and treatment

The relation between magic, religion and therapy in Nepal is analyzed here in the context of the widest process of medicalization which takes place at global level. The Nepalese indigenous system of diagnosis, treatment and healing has evolved evolved in a process of trial-and-error, empirical observation and experimental procedure. The article suggests that it is an on-going process not dissimilar to modern medicine. The concept of disease does not include the germ theory but rather the theory that the essence of the body has been captured by some external power. Task of the healer is to try to release the soul or balance the system establishing “normal” functions. The article provides the description of multiple roles related to the diagnostic process and gives ethnographic case-studies of the relation between traditional and modern medicine. Government and private agencies are described as working in the rural areas with the healers in order to use their clout to take the modern health-package to the most remote communities and to reduce the mortality rate