Pacatuba

Field observations were occasionally extended beyond Pacatuba; I accompanied village mothers and their sick children to the Marieta Calas Rehydration Center and to a number of hospitals located in the capital when neccesary.

Chapter 9 1985

Parents in Pacatuba, like members of other peasant communities, were able to draw upon an extensive herbal pharmacopeia in time of illness.

Chapter 9 1985

Rezadeiras (- dors), the most common type of lay healer in Pacatuba, are deeply religious women and men who are endowed with the power to heal from God,

Chapter 9 1985

This modification of traditional preventive wisdom has had a significant detrimental impact on children's health, since we have also shown that a bottlefed infant in Pacatuba suffers twelve times more days of diarrhea than an exclusively breastfed infant.

Chapter 9 1985

The research was carried out from July 1979 to June 1980 with a three-month follow-up in 1981 in Pacatuba, a rural town with a population of about 7,000 in the Brazilian northeast, about thirty-two kilometers from Fortaleza, the state capital.

Chapter 9 1985

Western-style hospitals, rehydration centers, medical schools, and special clinics increasingly provide health care in major cities and, to a more limited extent, in rural communities, such as Pacatuba.

Chapter 9 1985

Diarrhea is an illness of poverty in Pacatuba; it flourishes among the poorest village families with low incornes, faulty nutrition, poor living conditions, and inadequate clean water supplies.

Chapter 9 1985

These insights from Pacatuba impressed on our minds two important facts.

Chapter 9 1985

Other medical beliefs and practices evolved as direct responses to specific illnesses and environmental conditions in Pacatuba.

Chapter 9 1985