Nature Cure and Non-Communicable Diseases: Ecological Therapy as Health Care in India

Joseph S. Alter, R. M. Nair and Rukmani Nair
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Joseph S. Alter: Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15217, USA
R. M. Nair: Bapu Nature Cure Hospital and Yogashram, Gandhi Samarak Nidhi, Mayur Vihar Phase-1, New Delhi 110091, India
Rukmani Nair: Bapu Nature Cure Hospital and Yogashram, Gandhi Samarak Nidhi, Mayur Vihar Phase-1, New Delhi 110091, India

IJERPH, 2017, vol. 14, issue 12, 1-16

Abstract: With rapidly increasing rates of non-communicable diseases, India is experiencing a dramatic public health crisis that is closely linked to changing lifestyles and the growth of the middle-class. In this essay we discuss how the practice of Nature Cure provides a way of understanding the scale and scope of the crisis, as it is embodied, and a way to understand key elements of a solution to problems that the crisis presents for institutionalized health care. As institutionalized in contemporary India, Nature Cure involves treatment and managed care using earth, air, sunlight, and water as well as a strict dietary regimen. In this regard, the essay shows how Nature Cure’s bio-ecological orientation toward public health, which is grounded in the history of its modern incorporation into India, provides an expansionist, ecological model for holistic care that counters the reductionist logic of bio-medical pharmaceuticalization.

Keywords: India; Nature Cure; noncommunicable diseases; holistic health; alternative medicine; bioecology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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