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On the specificity of healing functions: A study of diagnosis in three faith healing institutions in Feira (Bahia, Brazil)

1989; Elsevier BV; Volume: 29; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/0277-9536(89)90197-4

1873-5347

Ndolamb Ngokwey,

Community Health and Development

This essay examines three popular ethnomedical institutions in Brazil: faith healers, Protestant evangelicals, and the practitioners of one of the Japanese new religions. In particular, I compare the relative degrees of diagnostic specificity in their practices. Medical anthropologists have neglected the analysis of this aspect of practice, although I show in the present paper its utility for comparative work. Also, I show that diagnostic specificity is congruent with an ontological view of illness and an active role for the healer, while lack of diagnostic specificity is congruent with a very general form of therapy, such as is found in the Seicho-no-Ie religion. Traditional rezadores, in contrast, use a high degree of diagnostic specificity.