Aboriginal medical science, for example, is fine and good as long as you live in a nomadic hunter-gatherer mode without access to modern medicine and in which your lifespan is bounded by countless ways of achieving an early departure from life ..... knowledge of some beneficial herbs is helpful, but does not meaningfully affect outcomes of illnesses, since most such treatments, like consuming spirits to dull pain, are topical rather than curative - treating the symptoms rather than the cause... often the patient feels better as he/she passes away.
Some wonderful things came from local tribal knowledge - cinca bark, for example ... ephedrine in bark .. and these have lead to refined scientific topical medications. Treating malaria with quinine is topical ... doesn't kill the bugs in the bloodstream... ephedrine - refined into pseudoephedrine - does not solve runny noses etc... it merely stops the symptoms.. it is a topical treatment not a cure.
There is nothing wrong with Indigenous lore - but there is a lot not right with it as the same time ... and much of it is as much poppy-cock as the idea that a purebred bitch dog will never breed true again if impregnated by a mongrel... DUH... there are still people who imagine they believe that... on their flat earth... sailed round the world touching all four corners!!
People of certain religious persuasions have in recent years been punished for trying to 'cure' (often children) those 'possessed' or whatever their religion says ..... which has often lead to the death of the person being 'cured'. Filling the sweat lodge with smoke is not going to cure asthma..... or stop blood thinning and causing heart problems... a ritual dance is not going to cure cancer.... infected crocodile bites don't go away when the magic feather is waved over the victim ...
Jeez - the way things are... when you live remote and 'traditional' .... some might even leave dropping the bundle until it's too late to summon the free RFDS flight for that Wharte Man's medicine.... a last minute decision to drop the bundle the traditional way etc, and then changing the mind, will result in an airport birth!!
P.S. I delivered my daughter at home during a raging storm ... midwife on way but stuck on wrong side of river.... daughter never had one day of serious problem in any way.... and is a happy soul at heart ... born into a loving household and into loving arms.... makes the world of difference...
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