The Study of Folk Healer’s Wisdom in Urinary Tract Stone Treatment: A Case Study of Mr. Khian Khuanthong in Song District, Phrae Province
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Abstract
This study aimed to assess the background, treatment procedure and herbal recipe for treating urinary tract stone of Mr. Khian Khuanthong (locally known as Moh Khian), a folk healer in Song district, Phrae province, using in-depth interviews. The researchers have found that the folk healer has inherited indigenous wisdom from ancestors, textbooks, and literati, and gained herbal therapeutic experience for 22 years. The treatment procedure begins with history taking and identifying major symptoms of the disease including dark yellow-turbid urine, burning when urinating, gallstones in urine, lower back pain and sciatica. Then Moh Khian’s herbal decoction is dispensed; his herbal recipe includes 11 kinds of dried herbs: Coix lachryma-jobi Linn. roots, Musa ABB group (triploid) cv. ‘teep’ M. paradisiaca L. roots, Piper sarmentosum Roxb. leaves, Piper macropiper Pennant. leaves, Piper betle L., Cassia fistula L. seeds, Smilax corbularia Kunth rhizome, Caesalpinia sappan L. wood and whole plants of Gomphrena globose L., Orthosiphon aristatus (Blume) Miq. and Cyathula prostrata (L.) Blume. In addition, this study has found that some kinds of herbs in the folk healer’s recipe also appear in the Thai Traditional Medicine textbooks, namely “Phaetsartsongkhroh Medical Textbook” and the “National List of Essential Medicines of 2012: Herbal Medicinal Products”. So, this study has presented the properties of medicinal plants and the concordance of indigenous wisdom for urinary tract stone treatment of a folk healer.
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References
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