Conjoined Twins
I. ENG AND CHANG, THE BUNKER TWINS
We know conjoined twins popularly as "siamese twins." The name is derived from the most famous of them all, Eng and Cheng who were born in Siam, now modern-day Thailand in 1811. They were joined by a ligament 4 inches long and 8 inches in circumference. They spent their early years on the theater circuit, exploited by promoters until age 21.
They settled in North Carolina and married two sisters. Between them (no, not a pun) they fathered 21 children. Chang died at home in 1874 following a bout of heavy drinking; Eng died three hours later. They were 63 years old, the record longevity for conjoined twins. None of their children were twins.
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II. BASIC FACTS ABOUT CONJOINED TWINS
They are the result of a rare embryological accident. Most are stillborn; most that are live births die within a few hours. In the United States, only 12-13 live for 24 hours. Probably only a dozen are alive today. There is a great range in the degree of fusion and, depending of what organs are shared, some have been separated successfully. Their separation, particularly when only one will survive, raise complex ethical-and financial questions.
Angela and Amy Lakeberg, born here in Indiana in 1993 dramatically illustrate these problems. Should they have been separated? Angela, the stronger of the two, was the chosen survivor. She never went home. After ten months in the hospital, she died of pneumonia. Costs exceeded a million dollars. The Hensel twins who weren't separated have done well. A major challenge is to help conjoined twins maintain their individuality.
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Sometimes one twin is more complete and the attached twin will be dependent upon it. Such a twin is called a parasite. As such, it may be only an internal tumor containing tissues such as teeth and hair, but otherwise devoid of organization. (My note: Healthy, normal identical twins are less identical in birth weight than fraternal twins. Thus one gets the majority of the resources in utero. The smaller identical twin usually catches up to the dominant sibling by six months after birth.)
Conjoined twins are:
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Resources
blueridgecountry.com/twins/twins.html
geocities.com/Tokyo/Gardens/3403/twins.html
Twins Joined at Birth a Discovery Channel
production October 25, 1999.
twinspace.com/siamese.html
wilkesboro.com/OldWilkesInc/engchang.htm
zygote.swarthmore.edu/cleave4a.html
zygote.swarthmore.edu/cleave4b.html
Also see Life magazine April 1996 and Sept, 1998 to learn more about the Hensel twins, born in 1990.
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Visions of the Spirit World
What do people see in an altered state of consciousness? A clue comes from South Africa in a study of Bushman cave art.
When entering an altered state of consciousness (the sort of trance !Kung Bushman enter is just one variety) people often experience visual hallucinations. These visions vary from one kind of altered state of consciousness to another, and from person to person. depending on cultural background as well as the emotional state of mind. Neuropsychological research has shown that despite these differences, there are many common features common to them.
By carefully examining various visual experiences resulting from different kinds of altered states of consciousness, hallucinations are the same in structure for all groups of people. This is because all humans share the same type of nervous system. The different altered states of consciousness affect the nervous system in much the same way, and it then produces similar visual experiences. How these hallucinations are interpreted is determined by personal and cultural backgrounds.
Research on the visual hallucinations of different altered states of consciousness has isolated three states in the development of mental imagery during the trance stated.
During the first stage of an altered state of consciousness people experience geometric shapes called entoptic phenomena. These include zigzags, chevrons, dots, flecks, grids, vortexes and U-shapes. These entoptic figures are seen as shimmering, moving, and sometimes enlarging patterns. They also combine in numerous ways.
Entoptic phenomena derive from the actual structure of the human nervous system, and this means that all those entering altered states of consciousness experience similar entoptic phenomena no matter what is their cultural background.
Entoptic figures, adapted from Dowson, 1992
During the second state of trance, people try to make sense of the entoptic phenomena by making the shape into something familiar to them. It is during this state that local environment starts to influence hallucinations.
As trancers enter the third state, their mental imagery undergoes a radical transformation. The most noticeable change is that the trancer becomes part of the experience.
Mental imagery derives from memory and includes people and animals and other features from one's own environment. Bushman, for example, don't have hallucinations of polar bears
This neuropsychological model helps to explain the nature of many of the unusual depictions seen in Bushman rock art. A more startling implication is this: cave art in Europe and other parts of the world may reflect trance and entoptic forms.
..... CJ '99
Resource
Bower, B. "Vision on the Rocks" Science News October 5, 1996 pp 209-224.
Dowson, T. Rock Engravings of Southern Africa Johannesburg: Witwaferstrand University Press, 1992.
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Endorphins
The most basic way in which cells and organs communicate with each other is by way of chemicals. Several obvious examples should be mentioned here. Neurotransmitters function at the junctions between nerve cells, or nerve cells and muscle (or other target) cells. Phytochemicals are those substances from plants that have medicinal value.
The study of phytochemicals is a special unit later when we examine ethnobotany and pharmacognosy in our unit on the rainforest. Endocrine hormones are secreted internally and circulate freely throughout the body. Other chemicals are released into the environment. These include urine scent marking and pheromones.
Neurotransmitters bring fast action and they excite or inhibit the cells they contact. The reason is proximity: one cell is adjacent to another. Receptor sites are very close to the nerve ending producing the neurotransmitter.
Hormonal messages, traveling in the blood, are much slower, but their effect is for a longer time. Their action is to speed up or slow down target cells' metabolism and activity. Growth and development are guided by hormones from the pituitary gland is a long term affair. Thus, speed is not so essential. (My note: It has been known for a long time that growth hormone is released in pulses, not continuously.)
Naturally produced phytochemicals are intriguing because they often mimic the activity of chemical substances in our body. That they can imitate, block, or alter these activities is the basis of their medicinal value. These chemicals also offer a crucial insight into the operation of the body, particularly the nervous system. Many have important medical uses.
In 1977, Guillemin and Schally received the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine after demonstrating how the brain 'gives orders' to the body using chemical messengers. Working independently, these two scientists (who originally came from Hans Selye's stress research laboratory), isolated a series of chemicals that are made in the brain's hypothalmus and travel to the pituitary gland. This gland is a major player in physical growth and development.
A second milestone came when Pert and Snyder located and labeled the receptors that the brain uses in communication among cells. It was found that our thoughts and perceptions can direct the release of neurochemicals. The brain, therefore uses neuroactive chemicals and their receptors (in addition to electrical impulses) to establish its far reaching influence over our bodies and our health.
Endorphins are among a special class of chemicals that alter the way in which nerve cells respond to signals from other nerve cells. Specifically, the term endorphin means 'endogenous morphine.' They belong to a class of compounds known as the opiates. The pain killing compounds derived from plants use the same opiate receptors on cells that are used by endorphins. They are our 'naturally occurring' opiates.
Endorphins seem to be released during exercise and many other activities; their action is blocked by the drug naloxone. Pleasant experiences and even accupuncture may release them. Endorphins are therefore very important in wellness and disease.
..... CJ '99
Resources
Justice, B. Who Gets Sick. Los Angeles: Tarcher, Inc. 1988.
Goleman, D. and Gurin, J. Mind Body Medicine Yonkers: Consumers Reports Books, 1993.
Martin, P. The Healing Mind New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998.
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Hallucinations and Altered States
I. ARCHAIC USE OF HALLUCINOGENS IN EUROPE
Our civilization has had a long history of interaction with psychoactive substances. The contemporary use of alcohol, synthetic narcotics, solvents, and hallucinogens is but the latest chapter in the story of psychoactive drugs. We are usually told that it began with alcohol; another substance probably preceded it.
Alcohol is a rather late arrival on the prehistoric stage. Its use began in Mesopotamia and the eastern Mediterranean in the fourth millennium BC and gradually filtered through the early Bronze Age cultures of the Aegean and Anatolia, eventually reaching the shores of the Atlantic about 2500 BC. As the use of alcohol spread, it gradually displaced the use of other psychoactive plants. Among these are the opium poppy and hemp (cannabis), both of which were deliberately cultivated by Stone Age farmers.
The opium poppy was domesticated as early as the sixth millennium BC in the west Mediterranean region. The discovery of globular bags containing opium at multiple burial sites demonstrates the widespread use of this substance. It probably had a use in ritual, referred to be some as the opium cult.
In the Iron Age, the ritualistic use of cannabis continued to flourish. Like alcohol, opium and cannabis spread from east to west and in their wake probably supplant other, earlier intoxicants as they themselves were to be eclipsed by drinking alcohol.
The use of other plants is speculative. Likely candidates include the hallucinogenic black henbane which was a common weed in and around settlements in Britain and elsewhere. The remains of various have been found in a number of prehistoric contexts. The most famous was the 5000-year old Alpine 'Iceman' discovered in 1991. Other uses must be considered also: for tinder and in the treatment of wounds.
The European Witch-cults used hallucinogenic salves that were applied transdermally. The ingredients are a virtual laundry list of psychoactive plants. Besides alcohol, these include opium, cannabis, thorn apple, deadly nightshade, henbane and mandrake. These last three contain the tropane alkaloids scopalomine, hyscyamine and atropine. The hallucinogeneic properties of all three have been verified by modern experimenters.
The remarkable number of psychoactive plants known to have been used in European witchcraft suggests that in pre-Christian practices there was a highly sophisticated cultural complex involving hallucinogens. In its ethnobotannical sophistication and integration of intoxicants into the religious life it may be compared with the shamanistic use of hallucinations in regions of Mesoamerican and the Amazon basin.
Current drug use is foreshadowed by a long and continuous prehistoric tradition of intoxicant use. Opium and cannabis are not just recent exotic imports. The post-war proliferation of hallucinogenic use is really a revival of archaic drug use practices.
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II. HALLUCINATIONS AND CULTURE
Hallucinations are a universal human experience. They are not merely restricted to mental or biological illness. Consider this: surveys about hallucinatory experiences suggest that 10-25% of the general population have had these experiences at least once in their lifetime. Two different studies of college students have produced the following finding: 37-39% of them reported hearing their own thoughts spoken aloud and 5% had conversations with the voices. Hallucinations, therefore, are not restricted to psychiatric patience. They occur with relatively high frequency in our culture's general population.
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III. WESTERN AND NON WESTERN CONCEPTS OF HALLUCINATIONS
The Western world of rational thought (using its own terms to describe itself) is very precise on the nature and means of human knowledge. We clearly acknowledge a physical world which exists, our own consciousness, and our senses. We disregard as false that which we cannot verify.
What is a good example? Consider the ephemeral wetness, that mirage of water on a pavement seen when driving on a warm summer day.
As a culture, we are intolerant of illusions, altered states, and hallucinations. Apart from the world of psychoactive drugs, we don't talk of these things if experience them for fear of being branded as 'nutty'.
Western and non-Western cultures differ in their concepts of illusion and reality. This is reflected in different attitudes toward hallucinations and the emotional reaction to them. Read this very carefully: many non-Western societies accept hallucinations or other imagery as real. For us, in contrast, the experience of hallucination or trance is considered as a mental disorder.
Hallucinations amongst aboriginal Hawaiians can be a punishment for violation of a taboo. If the person makes culturally appropriate amends, the hallucinations are ended.
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IV. TWO CONCEPTS OF REALITY
The degree of rationality and the distinction between reality and imagination vary from one society to another. Western rational scientific societies and pre-literate non-Western societies are very different. Many acculturated societies embody traits of each.
In many non-Western cultures, reality is used to describe hallucinations, drug-induced imagery, and altered states of consciousness. People react to those experiences as reality. In those non-Western societies, concepts of reality which consider hallucinations as some separate world make people more aware of the difference between actual perception and imagination during their interaction with both the physical environment and hallucinations.
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V. CONCEPTS OF REALITY AND ATTITUDES TOWARD HALLUCINATIONS
Rational cultures (their description of themselves) make a rigid distinction between reality and fantasy. They consider hallucinations unfavorably. We are culturally conditioned to suppress them or deny their existence.
In 'less rational' cultures where the distinction between reality and fantasy is more flexible, people are encouraged to freely experience their hallucinations, imagery, and other private events. People feel more free in these cultures to relate their experiences to others. Frequent indulgence in fantasy and imagination enables people to familiarize themselves with their inner world and learn to identify what is different from those of the outside world.
The frequency of hallucinations among subcultures in the West may also reflect different concepts of reality and different attitudes toward these experiences. When hallucinations are culturally sanctioned, more of them occur.
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VI. CULTURAL BELIEFS, EXPECTANCY, AND SUGGESTIBILITY
The cultural approach to hallucinations emphasizes the part played by learning and experience as well as by social and environmental stimuli in generating hallucinations. Cultural beliefs may increase both the expectancy of the individual and the perceived probability of certain types of hallucinations. In non-Western cultures, through a long process of socialization, individuals see and hear what is expected of them, increasing the level of suggestibility for these experiences. Many cultures use hallucinogenic drugs to enhance the suggestibility. Social pressure encourages a person to see the culturally correct visions, especially in ceremonies.
In the West, clinical observations suggest that patients also experience hallucinations only in particular situations when they expect to have them. The content of hallucinations might be influenced by expectancy and the demands of the situation.
In summary, cultural differences occur in the ways that social controls affect expectancy and suggestibility in hallucinations.
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VII. CONTROL, ANXIETY, AND FUNCTION OF HALLUCINATIONS
One of the most distressing aspects of hallucinations for Western patients is their inability to predict or control them. Psychiatry views them as a disturbing experience. Patients associate them with being crazy.
Do hallucinations have an adaptive function? In clinical practice in the West, they provide clues about what is going on in the patient's subconscious mind. This question awaits further investigation. The 'what' is easier to discuss than the 'why.'
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VIII. CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN HALLUCINATIONS
There are cultural variations in the frequency of different kinds of hallucinations within and between cultures. In the West, auditory hallucinations are the ones most frequently reported. Visual hallucinations are the least frequently reported in urban Euro-Americans. Such hallucinations are most frequently reported in Africa and the Near East.
Studies in Vienna over the last 100 years found a decrease in visual hallucinations and an increase in auditory ones. Thus, cultures not only vary--but can change over time in what they experience.
Medieval reports of visions have been well documented. These consisted of either messages from God and the saints, or as in interactions with demons and angels. As in the non-Western cultures described earlier, during the Middle Ages, visions were considered as true perceptions and not as symptoms of mental illness. Apparitions were frequent in Shakespeare plays. Hamlet and Macbeth are particularly good examples. We call them 'ghosts' and have relegated them to Hollywood and bedtime stories.
Acculturation and Westernization in the developing countries will probably alter the 'mix' of hallucinations reported in these countries.
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IX. CULTURE AND ILLUSION
Culture may affect hallucinations experienced by normal subjects. The study of hallucinations in different cultures provides an excellent example of how cultural factors intervene between the brain and experience or the brain and behavior.
Cross-cultural concepts of reality are related to the development and the threshold of hallucinations. Attitudes toward hallucinations tend to affect the emotional reaction to, and the degree of control of these experiences.
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X. SACRAMENTAL DRUGS
In a sense, this brings us full circle from the archaic use of drugs in Europe to the contemporary drug scene in many parts of the world. Recreational drug use is what we call drug abuse. In many cultures, drugs are used as sacred substances intrinsic to the rituals of religion, divination and healing, and to certain social interactions. Peyote and the Native American Church come to mind. Their ingestion and the altered mental states they produce, may contribute to the community and cohesion of a particular group of people. Worlds wide, the most common ritual drug is alcohol.
In some cultural groups, hallucinogenic drugs are used to obtain states of transcendence and fervor. In their trance state, those who take them are 'possessed' by the power inherent in the drug. Sometimes the drug is used only by a shaman or ritual healer, whose visions will reveal the source of collective or individual misfortune.
Most hallucinogenic drugs have powerful pharmacological effects on individuals. The cultural context of their use also influences the drug experience. The expectation of the participants will shape the contents of the visions that are experienced.
Here is a 'short list' of well know hallucinogenic drugs used in a ritual context.
This list is not exhaustive by any means! In recent years, these drugs have spread beyond their original sacred use and have been joined by a variety of synthetic 'designer' recreational drugs for street use.
..... CJ '99
Resources
Al-Issa, I. "The Illusion of Reality or the Reality of Illusion; Hallucinations and Culture" British Journal of Psychiatry 1995, pp 368-373. (sections II-IX)
Helman, C. Culture, Health and Illness Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann, 1994., pp 222-223. (section X).
Peikoff, L. Objectivism New York: Dutton/Penguin Group, 1991. (section III, remarks on metaphysics and epistemology)
Rudgley, R. "The archaic use of hallucinogens in Europe: an archaeology of altered states" Addiction 1995: pp 163-164, (section I)
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Hallucinogens and Culture
I. PSYCHOTROPIC DRUGS
Various parts of plants, their vines, fungi, leaves, barks, land tubers, have served human beings as sources of food or twine. Some plants have had a different impact on humans. These are the mind-altering plants--those that can, in some manner change normal waking consciousness. These substances have played a significant role in structuring the lives, beliefs, hopes, and values of large numbers of people.
Psycho tropic drugs are substances that cause psychological change or change in mental activity either by use of a plant or chemical substance. There are several types, including narcotics, sedatives, tranquilizers, and psychic stimulants. Most interesting to anthropologists are the hallucinogens because of their use in aboriginal societies. As a rule, the hallucinogens do not cause physical addiction.
Chemical substances are not the only means by which people have achieved altered states of consciousness. Such activities as meditation, fasting, flagellation, exercise, trance induction, dancing have been used to contact the supernatural.
Anthropologists interested in hallucinogens and culture have often remarked upon the expressive elements in the hallucinogenic drug experience. These esthetic elements have been reported worlds wide in cultures varying from band societies to civilizations and nation states. Shamans often function as artistic directors for the altered states experience and are sometimes called technicians of the supernatural.
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II. NATIVE AMERICAN INDIANS
The Plains Indians were nomads who exploited a vast land area in search of grazing animals, particularly the bison. These tribal groups used a few powerful hallucinogenic plants in their religious ceremonies, including various nightshade plants, the mescal bean, and tobacco.
Personal revelation was highly valued amongst the Plains Indians. (My note: personal revelation--achieved through a vision quest is a common theme amongst North American Indians. Some speculate that this cultural idea was brought to the Americas by the Paleoindians who came from Siberia 10,000 years ago.) Drug plants played an important role in helping individuals to achieve heightened states in which they felt that supernatural revelation was available to them.
Peyote is a spineless cactus with 'buttons' containing alkaloids that are stimulants or sedatives in varying proportions. When consumed, the peyote buttons produce a wide range of reactions. A common response to taking peyote is exhilaration and an inability to sleep for about twelve hours. Depression and hallucinations, sometimes containing color visions follow. Peyote is a non-habit forming drug. It was consumed in Mexico in aboriginal times and became popular amongst Indians of the United States only since 1850. Its use among them spread in the aftermath of Indian defeats and confinement to reservations. In 1918, the Native American Church was chartered as a religious institution to provide refuge from white laws against peyote.
A typical peyote service among Plains tribes was held in a tepee and lasted all night. Participants sat around a central fire and peyote buttons were passed for each person to take as many as they chose. A special gourd rattle and a drum were used to produce distinctive music. One person after another chanted his favorite song either in English or in his tribal language. Bibles and crosses might be part of the ceremonial equipment. The goals of the ceremony were to achieve physical and spiritual well being and to promote harmonious relations with each other.
Brotherly love, self-reliance, and a disapproval of alcohol all were important values held by participants. The psychedelic experience gained through the use of peyote was never an end in itself.
Before peyote diffused from Mexico, two major plants were used in addition to tobacco before the contact period. They were the jimson weed (Datura stramonium) and the mescal bean (Sephora secundiflora).
Jimson weed was used by numerous Plains tribes. The plant contains a number of alkaloids, some of which a quite dangerous. It was considered to be so powerful that its use was restricted to only a limited number of ceremonies. It was taken when someone wished to locate a thief or to revenge unrequited sexual advances. It was used by only one individual at a time. If a person was in poor health, he might hire a substitute to take the plant in his place.
What is experienced? Trance, visionary experience, or audible hallucinations can all occur. The Plains Indians believed that the visionary properties of the plant helped them to find vanished goods. The visionary effect of jimson weed was also used to diagnose illness. If the illness was caused by violating a taboo, or if an animal or person was responsible for the illness, this would all be revealed.
The Mescal Bean comes from an evergreen shrub containing bean-like scarlet seeds. It was used by various North American Indians because of its hallucinogenic properties. Ingestion of just half a bean produced a delirious exhilaration, followed by a deep sleep lasting two to three days. It was reputed that the ingestion of an entire bean could kill a man. Their use in antiquity has been confirmed by archaeology. The mescal bean was incorporated into highly elaborated ceremony and in the literature is often described as the mescal bean cult.
Both Datura and the mescal bean fit well into the Plains Indian world view. Well known among the Plains Indians was the vision quest, which included fasting, isolation, and self mutilation over several days. The goal was to achieve contact with the guardian spirit, whom the future warrior could call upon in times of difficulty. Such spiritual contact was renewed periodically during the warrior's lifetime. Shamans often guided the personal ecstatic learning.
Tobacco played an important role in Plains culture. While all Plains tribes probably smoked tobacco, not all cultivated the plant. Those that didn't then obtained it by trade. Wild ancestors of the tobacco plant do not exist in North America, so it has probably diffused from South American. Some strains were more potent than others.
We think of tobacco as a secular plant. Plains Indians saw it as religious and ceremonial. Plains medicine bundles almost always contained a pipe and tobacco. It was believed that sacred objects in the medicine bundle could help and individual establish rapport with the supernatural. Pipes were passed around at council meetings and were especially during peace making ceremonies. Tobacco was also burned as incense or cast into the air or onto the ground.
The tobacco used today by the cigarette industry is very mild compared to the aboriginal version. Tobacco "literally knocked the Indians out." In those times, tobacco was used for divination, magic/religion, healing, and for social interaction.
Tobacco was not only smoked, but was taken in decoctions, salves, and wads. It was used as a medicine for all sorts of disease. Also, tobacco smoke served as an important adjunct to shamanistic techniques.
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III. CROSS-CULTURAL MOTIFS IN USE OF HALLUCINOGENIC PLANTS
One of the most striking motifs connected to drug use is the division made by traditional societies between the sacred and the secular. The feeling of terror, of awe-inspiring mystery, that individuals in such societies experience before the unknown, certainly contrasts with the secular world view of people like ourselves.
The way time is perceived was probably much different from our own--where clocks are everywhere and time is a commodity--a scarce resource. The properties of time suspension as it was experienced under the influence of plant hallucinogens can be seen to aid in affirming the sacred nature of man's sojourn on earth.
In several societies, animals have played a vital role in teaching or revealing the properties of plant hallucinogens to humans. How? The behavior of animals after the inadvertent consumption of some plants gave clues to their properties. Among Siberian shamans, there is some indication that the reindeer's fondness for the fly agaric mushroom may have led human beings to experiment with the plant over time.
Some believe that hallucinogenic plant ingestion dates back to Paleolithic times, at least 40,000 years before the present. During this period, human beings hunted and followed large beasts of prey. Depending upon their geographic location, these people were omniverous in their eating habits. It is possible that hallucinogenic plants had great influence on the social life of human beings.
Visions appear to be culturally patterned. There seems good evidence that in a society where plant hallucinogens are used, each individual builds up a certain expectation of drug use. This permits of evocation of certain types of visions.
Plant hallucinogens lend themselves to religious elaboration. For shamans, drugs assist them in accessing cosmic powers. In a sense, they permit him to exert some control over the often capricious world in which he operates. In this sense, hallucinogenic drugs are certainly adaptive for humans.
Revealed knowledge is highly valued in traditional societies, especially where hunting and gathering is the main economic activity. By using plant hallucinogens, humans can strengthen the bond that exists between them and their gods. As societies grow in complexity and enter into hierarchal orderings and segmentation, drug use and the value placed on direct, mystical knowledge of the divine undergoes change.
We might expect that in simple, undifferentiated societies, when drug plants are available, their use would tend to be for communal goods and ends. Global studies of plant hallucinogens indicated that with the advent of intensive agriculture and the ensuing social structural complexity and segmentation, elite segments of the society usurp and manipulate hallucinogenic plant use.
A motive of considerable interest is the way that plant hallucinogens are used cross-culturally in the treatment of disease. This use is especially common among people who believe in a supernatural etiology of disease--a belief quite generalized among traditional populations. Thus, if one believes that most forms of disease and misfortune are due to the evil intents of others, the visionary content of hallucinogens can be used to identify the source of evil, which may be either a supernatural agent or an individual who has bewitched the sick person. Known and unknown faces can and do appear before the drug user; they can be blamed for whatever ill or misfortune is under scrutiny. Vision can be used for dealing with the unknown.
Another recurrent theme in cross-cultural studies of drug use is the insistence on sexual abstinence and special preparatory diets prior to the ingestion of various plant hallucinogens. Sexual activity may be discouraged prior to the ritual ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs because of a desire to channel libidinal energy toward inner states of contemplation. Any discharge of such energy might be reviewed as detracting from the experience itself. The reason various drug using societies are so particular about the food eaten before an individual ingests a hallucinogen may be due to a desire to heighten the effects of the drug when it is finally taken.
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IV. SUMMARY
What can we say in summary about drug use cross culturally? It is clear that plant hallucinogens, in one form or another, have been a part of the human experience from the beginning. Note this: In aboriginal societies, there is little or no abuse of drugs. In a study of more than 247 societies in the HRAF (human relations area files) abuse is nil when self reports of informants are considered. These substances seem to have not been a threat to aboriginal cultures. The power of mind-altering drugs was often restricted by taboos and rituals which effectively regulated them.
..... CJ '99
Resources
Dobkin de Rios, M. Hallucinogens Cross-Cultural Perspectives Prospect Hts: Waveland Press, 1996.
Oswalt, W and Nealy, C. This Land was Theirs 6th ed Mountain View: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1999.
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TEXT Ch 7 Stress, Illness, and Healing pp 237-279. These notes are a companion to your reading. Be sure to underline terms as you read!
I. STRESS: A CONCEPT, A MODEL
-Stress is a person's response to harsh environmental demands. In physics, stress means "to subject to pressure or strain."
-In humans, stress is an internal process. Three bodily systems are involved in the physiological response:
-Some returning veterans suffer from post-traumatic stress disorders. One-third of homeless men, according to recent news reports, are Viet Nam vets.
-Returning POWs or long term hostages find their homecoming stressful. This illustrates that some seemingly favorable events can be stressful-even some as 'benign' as holidays.
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II. INDIVIDUAL TOLERATION OF STRESS
-The authors have studied Eskimo so they use them to illustrate the individual and cultural toleration of stress. Eskimo grow up with noise so they are used to it, and feel isolated and alone without it. (My note: I can tell you, having been on one in the Pacific, that life on a Navy troop ship is very disturbing. Dormitory noise can get to you also.)
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III. PHYSIOLOGY OF STRESS p 242
-Before we begin, do understand that physiology is one aspect of medicine that acknowledges homeostasis. TEXT pays homages to Claude Bernard, the French physiologist who said that organisms see to maintain the 'constancy of their internal milieu.'
-He influenced Walter Cannon who called the self-regulating power of the body homeostasis.
-We now proceed to two of the pioneers in the field, Walter Cannon and Hans Selye. One focused on the nervous system, the other on hormones. They will be easier to remember if you keep these systems clear in your mind:
-Walter Cannon studied the autonomic nervous system.
-Hans Selye did the early work on hormones
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-Cannon described the fight or flight reaction. What facilitates our response to danger? The autonomic nervous system (and later as we see with Selye) the adrenal and pituitary glands.
-The sympathetic nervous system accelerates the heartbeat, raises blood sugar, directs more blood to the muscles and brain. It responds to fear and anger; it increases the heartbeat, pupils widen, blood sugar is raised.
-The parasympathetic system is somewhat the opposite-lowers blood pressure, constricts the pupils of the eye. It is opposed to the sympathetic; it acts to conserve body resources; the opposite of the sympathetic.
-Usually one predominates over the other at any time. In physiology they are typically seen as opposites.
-The 'fight or flight' reaction is adaptive if you are attacked by a junk yard dog and successfully. Your body mobilizes you to flee.
-The 'fight or flight' reaction can be maladaptive if you are stuck in traffic, are late, and can't do anything.
-Today we often deal with 'symbolic danger.' Examples are a failing grade, getting fired, or threatened with 'salary compression.' In 'stone age diet' discordance thinking, "we respond to information age problems with stone-age bodies."
-We respond physiologically to symbolic danger and don't fight or flee. We get cardiovascular diseases.
-Our forbears responded to wooly mammoths, acted physically, and that was it.
-Symbolic danger plus modern diets and sedentary lifestyles take their toll. We seem to 'take it out' on our bodies. Sometimes, like Howard K. Beale in the movie Network finally lashes out: "I'm as mad as hell and I won't take it any more!" I recall the story of a San Quentin prison inmate who bludgeoned his advisor to death after seventeen years in grad school.
-We'll look at a close-knit Italian-American community with close ties and low heart disease later in this course. The briefest mention is in TEXT p 244.
-Atherosclerosis/cardiovascular disease can result from excessive sustained sympathetic system disease.
-Long term hostility contributes to heart disease. Articles appear occasionally about 'grumpy old men' with bad hearts.
-Some diseases with associations to the parasympathetic nervous system are asthma, ulcers, and colitis.
-Some stress-related diseases are called 'diseases of civilization.' Warning: this whole topic is complex and there are more 'associations' than there is certified cause-and-effect proof.
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IV. PROFILE: MAGICAL DEATH pp 245-248. Be sure to read-these notes are very brief!
-Can fear kill? The simple answer is that symbols and beliefs have a powerful effect on people, for good or bad. If you believe in sorcery, it can have an effect on you. Walter Cannon said that 'sorcery death' was due to shock-outpouring of unused epinephrine. Other people have different interpretations. So, can stress kill? Symbols and beliefs have a powerful effect on humans.
-Richter who has studied rats immersed in water has said that their lack of hope led to excessive parasympathetic system response. The text doesn't tell you, but the rats can be conditioned to swim longer if they are plucked out of the water each time just before they drown.
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V. HANS SELYE and the GENERAL ADAPTATION SYNDROME pp 248-252.
-Much of these notes are from Bob Mucci's copy of Selye's The Stress of Life. It is interesting to read about Selye in his own words; much of this section is not in TEXT.
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A. The Stress Syndrome / The General Adaptation Syndrome
-The stress syndrome is the general adaptation syndrome. It has three aspects:
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-Hans Selye studied medicine in Prague. He had private tutors and was in medical school by the age of age 18 years. Later, Selye went to McGill and the U. of Montreal. He took an interest in the early generalized symptoms of infectious disease and chose a career in research.
-At McGill, he studied sex hormones. He injected rats with animal extracts. When rats were subjected to stress to the point of exhaustion, four things happened:
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-Selye was looking for a new hormone. He tried injecting formalin and many other agents and all he got was failure. EVERY agent he tried produced the stress syndrome. Even cold temperatures produced the stress syndrome. Out of this research came the notion of the General Adaptation Syndrome.
-The experiments were simple. Rats were dissected with scissors using visual observation. Cold was a convenient laboratory stressor.
-Animals experience stress in all three stages, but the responses differ. The third stage is not inevitable
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B. The Local Adaptation Syndrome
-The text just merges into this topic without clearly indicating that it is something else.
-What is it? This response is the LOCALIZED reaction to injury. Inflammation (redness, swelling, heat, pain) are a local reaction. Note: inflammation is not the same thing as infection.
-Inflammation is a response to injury such as infection, bee stings, a paper cut, and so on. There is a relationship between the general adaptation syndrome and the local reaction syndrome. The adrenal cortex releases inflammatory hormones and anti-inflammatory hormones.
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C. Crossed Resistance p 249
-This is an interesting idea: generalized stress can enhance the effectiveness of localized resistance to infection. Your book explains it with rad pouches on p 251. Mexican curers use this principle when they use bee stings to treat arthritis. This also may explain how homeopathy works in some of its applications.
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VI. CAN STRESS INDUCE HEALING? Pp 252-261
-Selye's work is now legendary. The underlying physiology is very complex. In brief, can it be applied?
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-Does stress contribute to 'social deviance?' p 256
-Is stress a major factor in a disease incidence in immigrants? Stresses in migration and culture change probably contribute to coronary heart disease. A lack of social support seems to magnify the effects. A recent sharp rise in suicide among newly upscale Blacks may be stress related.
-Social support seems to have a most positive effect on the immune and neuroendocrine systems. We encounter these events in later units on the Whitehall study and the Rosetto Effect. Caution: sometimes social networks can be a source of stress.
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LIFE CHANGE UNITS from CU Mind/Body Medicine pp 35-38
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VII. PROFILE, PREGNANCY, SOCIAL SUPPORT p 261
-Couvade is when men experience pregnancy symptoms. Thus, couvade can be defined simply as 'male pregnancy responses.' They can occur both during labor, delivery, and the post partum societies.
-46 of 114 societies surveyed have them. Some men practice food taboos, limit their activities, or even go into seclusion. Some men even claim to have labor pains. It is seen as a ritual tactic to claim paternity (Helman p 177) The term couvade comes from the Basque language, which means to brood or hatch.
-If you think this is just in the Third World, in a study of 267 couples in Rochester, New York, 60 of the men reported some medical responses to their wife's pregnancy and delivery. In American society, men are relegated to being a sort of 'anxious outsider.'
-As a rule, the more dependent the woman, the more the woman will interpret this in their man as social support. Where there is a larger social support for the woman, the husband is likely to display couvade.
-In its extreme form, it is where the woman quickly returns to work and waits on the father . . . a virtual reversal of roles. In some cultures, the man actually goes to bed during childbirth. The father simulates the symptoms of labor and childbirth. In ancient and recent times, it has been reported on all continents. It persists in this century in Brazil and among the Basques. Some sort of restriction on the father at childbirth is common among nonliterate and ancient cultures.
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Stress in Children pp 265-266
-The more complex and large scale is a society, the more demands are made on children and more often children are punished physically.
-Cortisol can be measured in a child's saliva. It is used as a measure of stress in children. What is cortisol? It is one of the stress hormones (p 250). Cortisol acts as an anti-inflammatory agent, regulates alertness, and modulates energy release. Some think that prolonged high levels suppress the immune system. Child abuse can lead to "deprivational dwarfism' or 'failure to thrive.'
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Alcohol Abuse pp 266-268
-There seems to be an inherited component to alcoholism. Boys of alcoholic parents who are adopted out into another family are seven times more likely to be alcoholics than boys of non alcoholics. Girls are three times more likely to be alcoholics if the parents are alcoholics than children of non alcoholics.
-Are some ethnic groups more likely to be alcoholics than others? This is difficult to answer because alcoholism tends to be embedded in the larger problems of poverty and other problems of being stuck in the lower classes.
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VIII. CULTURE AND PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS p 268
-Question: do the stresses peculiar to a society lead to a greater incidence of psychiatric problems? In northern Canada, divorce, crime, and little recreation correlate with a high incidence of psychiatric problems. In a separate study, a high rate of psychiatric problems are reported in adult Irish men.
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Culture Bound Syndromes (p 269) have always held a special fascination in anthropology. So-called culture-bound reactive syndromes are behavioral disorders limited to specific culture areas. These are sometimes called 'folk illness' or 'ethnic psychosis.' There is often no biochemical basis. We mention here some that appear in TEXT.
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-WINDIGO is limited to northern Algonian Indian groups such as the Chippewa, Cree and Ogibwa. In their belief system, a windigo is a cannibalistic monster. Individuals fear becoming one and enjoying the taste of human flesh.
-LATAH in Malaysia is a fear reaction that occurs in middle aged women who are of low intelligence, subservient, and self-effacing. They show an exaggerated startle reflex. These people make repetition of the words and sentences of others.
-AMOK is a hysteria in New Guinea, Indonesia, and Malaysia that occurs mostly among young men. There are sudden homicidal outbursts in young men. It is seen as a rage disorder. Does this remind you of occasional shootings in the post office?
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In North America there are ANOREXIA NERVOSA, BULIMIA, and AGORAPHOBIA-the fear of leaving home. We have a special unit on self-inflicted disease-the famous MUNCHAUSEN SYNDROME later in this course.
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-SUSTO (p 273) is a 'role conflict' disorder found in Spanish speaking societies in the New World. Susto means 'fright.' They believe that a victim's soul has been taken from the body and captured by spirits. There are apathy, depression, weight loss, and withdrawal. The folk treatment is to restore the balance of the 'hot and cold humors' of the body.
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IX. ARCTIC HYSTERIA pp 274-278
-This is known to the Polar Eskimo as pibloktoq. Adults are subject to this peculiar affliction. Women begin to scream, tear off, and destroy their clothing. On a ship, they will run up and down the deck. They will run off. The attack is for a variable period of time. They fall into a deep, sound sleep, wake up later with no memory of it. Does it have a physical basis?
-Dogs can experience it! So has at least one European! Is it a learned hysteria? It could be due to the loss of the regular daily circadian rhythm. Others with a more biological orientation speculate that it is food poisoning, epilepsy, low blood sugar, or something else physiological. A deficiency of calcium or a vitamin A overdose have also been suggested.
..... CJ '99
READER pp 185-193 Do Psychiatric Disorders Differ in Different Cultures?
-This article and the subsequent one about SUSTO may be difficult reading. Textbooks and readers are very different genre of literature. Text book writers are writing for you, the reader. Usually, textbooks are written by people with good teaching skills. These two articles in the READER are written by scholars for consumption by fellow scholars. In a juried peer reviewed journal, articles that are submitted are sent off to the writer's peers. If they don't accept it-it doesn't get published. Writing for peers is often arcane and difficult for the outsider to read. Give the articles your best shot.
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-This article assumes you have had some introduction to culture bound psychoses, so read your TEXT and notes first.
-IF cultural stresses vary in different societies, THEN you would expect psychiatric disorders to differ in different societies. Indeed they do as you will read.
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SUSTO pp 196-205.
-Susto is explained as a folk illness that might best be described as soul loss. This is strange to use, but becomes understandable in the animistic belief system of belief in souls. Since the cause is spiritual/metaphysical, pay attention to the healing rites beginning p 201.
..... CJ'99