Ritenbaugh C
Cult Med Psychiatry. 1982 Dec;6(4):347-64. doi: 10.1007/BF00118882.
Although the term "culture-bound syndrome" has been used for many years, a concise definition has not been available. The less precise synonym "folk illness" has implied that such syndromes exist only in other cultures. This paper provides a four-part definition to permit examination and comparison of disease categories in any system, including biomedicine. Anthropologists have tended to view biomedicine as the standard for comparison, and have not examined it in the same critical light as other systems. This may be due in part to a confusion of the biomedical classificatory system (biomedicine per se, emic level) with the biological data on which in is based (etic level). One can in fact retain use of the biological data while analyzing biomedicine, which is understood to include cultural components. Mild-to-moderate obesity in the U.S. today fits the proposed definition of a culture-bound syndrome. This paper offers a brief overview of the evidence that culture has shaped both the definition of the disease over time and its treatment.
尽管“文化束缚综合征”这一术语已使用多年，但尚无一个简洁的定义。不太精确的同义词“民间疾病”暗示这类综合征仅存在于其他文化中。本文给出了一个由四部分组成的定义，以便对任何体系（包括生物医学）中的疾病类别进行审视和比较。人类学家倾向于将生物医学视为比较的标准，而没有像对待其他体系那样以批判性的眼光审视它。这在一定程度上可能是由于生物医学分类系统（生物医学本身，即主位层面）与作为其基础的生物学数据（客位层面）之间存在混淆。实际上，人们在分析生物医学时可以保留对生物学数据的使用，生物医学被认为包含文化成分。当今美国的轻度至中度肥胖符合所提出的文化束缚综合征的定义。本文简要概述了文化如何随着时间的推移塑造了这种疾病的定义及其治疗方法的相关证据。
