hot-cold disease system
hot-cold disease system
EthnomedicineA therapeutic system rooted in classical Greco-Roman and Persian-Arabic medicine which arrived in the Americas with the Conquistadors and merged with local Mayan medicine; illnesses are viewed as either “hot” and treated with “cold” remedies (e.g., limes, cauliflower and roses), or “cold” and treated with “hot” remedies (e.g., rue (Ruta graveolens), garlic and crude brown sugar). The system is practised in its waning years by “curanderos” in Central America.