Week 8 Notes: Native American Medicine and Bias

 

Native Americans chew willow bark for aches and various pains, saline is a chemical in willow bark which is the main ingredient in aspirin 

Natives also invented baby bottles and baby formula, as well as syringes

ingesting small amounts to become immune is one of their main practices for things such as poison oak

multiple explorers wrote down their findings in medicine

many natives avoid biomedical research for fear of exploitation

also were participants for disease cure trials

the syringes were made out of sharpened out bird bone

capsaicin and jimson weed are two topical ointments they discovered and used

mouthwash made of goldthread was also one of the first versions of mouthwash

used the medicine wheel with many symbolic colors, was assimilated out of usage to some people

had anesthesia when many Europeans did not

used Peyote as anesthesia which U.S army surgeons adopted

colonization is responsible for most of the loss of their medical knowledge

reservation healthcare is unsanitary

undertrained staff 

only receives 4.4 billion in funds from gov when needs around 15.5

many natives live in poverty and cannot go to the doctor, furthering the argument for underfunding