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The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
Summary: The title of Anne Fadiman's book, The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, is the rough translation from Hmong to English of the word epilepsy. The book addresses cross-cultural ethics in medicine and tells the story of Lia Lee, a small Hmong child with epilepsy whose treatment is hindered by cross-cultural problems between her Hmong parents and her California doctors. These problems included miscommunication between the parties, cultural racism toward the Hmong people, and the conflict between the practices of the Hmong shaman and those of Western medicine.
The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is about the cross-cultural ethics in medicine. The book is about a small Hmong child named Lia Lee, who had epilepsy. Epilepsy is called, quag dab peg1 in the Hmong culture that translates to the spirit catches you and you fall down. In the Hmong culture this illness is sign of distinction and divinity, because most Hmong epileptics become shaman, or as the Hmong call them, txiv neeb2. These shamans are special people imbued with healing spirits, and are held to those having high morale character, so to Lia's parents, Foua Yang and Nao Kao Lee, the disease was both a gift and a curse. The main question in this case was could Lia have survived if her parent's and the doctors overcame the miscommunication, cultural racism, and the western way of medicine.
Perhaps the greatest problem...
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This section contains 1,844 words (approx. 7 pages at 300 words per page) |
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