Bush medicine is the term used in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
by
AboriginalAustralian Aborigines are a class of people who are identified by Australian law as being members of a race indigenous to the Australian continent....
people to describe their traditional medicinal knowledge and practices.
The term is often used in conjunction with Bush tucker.
Different language groups have different bush medicine knowledge, based on where they live in Australia. Many Aboriginal people still use this knowledge today.
Generally, bush medicine is made from plant materials, such as bark, leaves (e.g.
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Bush medicine is the term used in
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
by
AboriginalAustralian Aborigines are a class of people who are identified by Australian law as being members of a race indigenous to the Australian continent....
people to describe their traditional medicinal knowledge and practices.
The term is often used in conjunction with Bush tucker.
Different language groups have different bush medicine knowledge, based on where they live in Australia. Many Aboriginal people still use this knowledge today.
Generally, bush medicine is made from plant materials, such as bark, leaves (e.g. Tea tree oil (melaleuca oil)) and seeds. However, animal products can sometimes be used, such as
emuThe Emu , Dromaius novaehollandiae, is the largest bird native to Australia and the only extant member of the genus Dromaius. It is also the second-largest extant bird in the world by height, after its ratite relative, the ostrich. The soft-feathered, brown, flightless bird reach up to in height...
and
goannaGoanna is the name used to refer to any number of Australian monitor lizards of the genus Varanus, as well as to certain species from Southeast Asia.There are around 30 species of goanna, 25 of which are found in Australia...
fat.
Steaming, smoking and heating were also important bush medicine remedies, and could be carried out on the sick and on newborn babies.
Some examples of bush medicine include:
- Paperbark
- young leaves chewed to alleviate headache
In medicine a headache or cephalalgia is a symptom of a number of different conditions of the head. Some of the causes are benign while others are medical emergencies.There are a number of different classification systems for headaches...
- Bean tree
- Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is a diverse genus of flowering trees in the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. Members of the genus dominate the tree flora of Australia. There are more than 700 species of Eucalyptus, mostly native to Australia, and a very small number are found in adjacent parts of New Guinea and Indonesia...
In general, there are two types of accepted causes of illness in aboriginal tribes - natural, and supernatural. Natural causes would be treated with natural remedies, and supernatural illnesses could only be treated with a spiritual cure. It was believed that evil spirits caused any illness without an obvious explanation and these would be treated by the tribe's medicine man who would specialise in spiritual cures.
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