IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v27y1988i1p25-38.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mystification of a simple solution: Oral rehydration therapy in Northeast Brazil

Author

Listed:
  • Nations, Marilyn K.
  • Rebhun, L. A.

Abstract

Problems in the control of access to and administration of oral rehydration therapy (ORT) in Northeast Brazil are described and discussed. Administration of ORT is controlled by the medical establishment, which is in general opposed to the use of home made and home administered ORT. Reasons for this resistance are discussed in terms of anthropological theories on ritual, mystification, and the social constraction of reality; the medical establishment is described as using ORT as a symbol and guarantor of social status and power. Finally, an innovative program to circumvent the medical establishment by teaching ORT to traditional healers is described; the healers' integration of ORT into religious healing ceremonies is analyzed.

Suggested Citation

  • Nations, Marilyn K. & Rebhun, L. A., 1988. "Mystification of a simple solution: Oral rehydration therapy in Northeast Brazil," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 25-38, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:27:y:1988:i:1:p:25-38
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(88)90161-X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ellis, Amy A. & Winch, Peter & Daou, Zana & Gilroy, Kate E. & Swedberg, Eric, 2007. "Home management of childhood diarrhoea in southern Mali--Implications for the introduction of zinc treatment," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(3), pages 701-712, February.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:27:y:1988:i:1:p:25-38. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.