Sickness and health: superstitions and strange diagnoses

7 comments

in American culture,community,culture,society

Russian cold by JEremeeva

By JENNIFER EREMEEVA

Nowhere do the cultural gaps between Russians and Westerners yawn wider than in attitudes towards sickness and health. This country pioneered laser eye surgery, but still uses jam where you and I would use penicillin.

In Russia, the health care system is feast or famine. You can get a first-rate boob job in Moscow, but low blood pressure medication is usually sold out, and I’m still unclear where they sell vitamins.

“To your good health!” runs the popular toast, “Na zdaroviye!” The good wishes are not idly issued:  Ill health lurks around every corner in Russia, and the causes are many and manifest.

I’ve given up trying to match the illnesses described to ones I know exist in the real world, like on Grey’s Anatomy.

“My heart hurts,” states Tatiana.  (That’s right:  “heart” not “head.”)

“It’s the weather,” responds Svetlana while Olga asserts it’s “the pressure…”

I still don’t understand the pressure thing. Sometimes I’m sure it is air pressure, but other times I think it must be blood pressure. Sometimes, I am assured it is neither.  Blood pressure could be responsible for your heart hurting, but then how could the weather be connected?  And should pressure be high or low?

“My head hurts!” cries Katya

“The pressure is very low,” explains Anya.

Galina nods sympathetically. “It’s the magnetic field.”

The magnetic field!  It must exist on some level, because the weathermen in Russia refer to it nightly.   “We don’t have this in America,” I try to explain, but Russians just laugh as if I’ve floated a hypothesis that we don’t have Coca-Cola.

Are there odd health superstitions where you are living?  Conditions you’ve never heard of?
+++++
Jennifer Eremeeva is a Massachusetts-born historian, photographer and cook who blogs about the funnier side of life in Russia.
+++++

Related posts:

  1. Nasty ex machina: the cultural, political and religious roots of bad service

Tagged as: cosmetic surgery, folk remedy, health, illness superstition, Jennifer Eremeeva, laser surgery, Moscow, preventative care, Russia, Russian, Russian healthcare

  • http://www.skaiangates.com Yazarc

    In Turkey becoming a mother involves a crash course in bizarre beliefs. If your little one drinks anything straight from the fridge their throat will close over. If they sweat and aren’t changed immediately they will get sick. If they feel cold they will get a cold. If they go barefoot their kidneys will suffer (doesn’t just affect the uterus you see!). If they eat icecream during the winter they’ll get the flu.
    Also anything herbal/healthy can cure all ills. This usually varies on a weekly basis with a raft of tv news items about said miracle cure. Examples are hazelnuts for libido, pekmez (treacle made from mulberry or grapes) for ‘making’ blood, pomegranate juice for digestion (I think)… Some of these do have some basis in reality, but most are so wildly exaggerated you start to doubt if any of it’s true.

  • http://www.bazaarbayar.blogspot.com Catherine Bayar

    Great subject, Jennifer, and a hilarious link about superstitions! Here in Turkey, everyone knows that going barefoot on a cold floor will keep a women from becoming pregnant, and that letting any fresh air into a room during winter will kill everyone in the house. And if you do not adorn your children and your doorways with nazar boncuk, those blue glass evil eyes, you’re asking for trouble. I’m now drinking sage tea – rough dried sticks of the plant with the leaves left on – for my stuffy sinuses (it works). And at least the Aegean Region, herbalists did a very brisk business, since people would consult them first, then a Western style doctor.

    And though this bizarre practice goes beyond strictly health issues into the realm of removing bad luck, women still pour molten lead into a dish of cold water over the cloth-covered head of a seated and troubled someone. The lead is then thrown across a river or into a large body of water to get rid of the evil. Hey, why not?

  • http://www.Sezin.org/ Sezin

    Actually the pressure thing has a basic in reality but in America it’s called the effects of “low barometer”, which is the air pressure created by weather patterns that cause headaches and migraines. We have it here in Prague too and it was the first time I ever felt the weight of the universe pressing down on my head. This doesn’t happen everywhere in the world, but tends to in landlocked areas, apparently oceans and seas ease the low pressure and is probably why everyone mostly feels fabulous in those areas. :-)

    • http://www.bazaarbayar.blogspot.com Catherine Bayar

      Thank you Sezin – you’ve just explained why I’m happiest living on peninsulas! The abrupt cold weather now here in Istanbul caused my sinus headaches and low energy this week, according to my acupuncturist, who happened to be in town. I flipped out several guys we work with by having a mini-treatment in the shop – I guess the sight for needles was too much for them…

      • http://www.expatharem.com/identity-messages/ Anastasia

        Needles in the face make witnesses go weak? I can imagine!

        You remind me of the Chinese herbal medicine treatments I’ve tried in Malaysia. Jennifer, for “crystals in the joints” once an herbalist rubbed a deer antler on my arm — which made a spectacular bruise (and made me forget all about the pain in my wrist). I often heard from reflexologists about these crystals — which now I can easily look up on the Internet and see are uric acid build-up, also known as ‘gout’. (To my mind, gout was only something fat rich men in 18th century English novels had.)

  • Pingback: Tweets that mention Sickness and health « expat+HAREM, the global niche -- Topsy.com

  • http://www.sarahmelamed.com Sarah Melamed

    I can relate to your article as there are many Russian doctors in Israel who immigrated in the early ’90s. One doctor I visited told me that there was nothing he could give me to alleviate my condition “just think happy thoughts”, he told me like an actor on Sesame Street. The strangest thing- it worked!

Previous post:

Next post: