Healing Across the World and Through the Ages Quiz

Answer: Phrenology

Nephrology is the branch of medicine that deals with all aspects of the kidneys including their physiology and pathology. Psychiatry deals with mental diseases and disorders. Oncology deals with the pharmaceutical treatment of cancer patients. Phrenology, from the Ancient Greek meaning 'knowledge of the mind', is a pseudoscience based on the concept that a person's mental traits can be predicted by studying the contours of the skull.

Answer: India

Ayurveda is a system of alternative medicine that is widely practised in India and Nepal. A lot of Ayurvedic therapies contain herbs, but some also contain high levels of heavy metals. Tradition would have it that medical knowledge was passed from the gods to physicians via sages.

Some orthodox practitioners regard Ayurvedic practice as quackery, but even placebos can help people feel better, so belief can sometimes work.

Answer: Meridians

In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), meridians are pathways involved in the flow of energy necessary for the maintenance of good health. Most, but not all, acupuncture points lie along these purported pathways, and acupuncture needles are inserted at these points to correct presumed disharmony or imbalance of energies such as qi (life energy), yin and yang. Scientific research has failed to find evidence for the existence of these meridians and yet many millions of people in China and elsewhere in the world use CTM each year.

Answer: 19th

Homeopathy is a system of healing created in the late 18th century by the German physician Samuel Hahnemann. He believed that a substance that caused an illness in a previously well person could be used to cure that same illness in someone suffering from it.

The main tenets of the approach are that like cures like and that dilution increases potency in the treatment of diseases caused by agents that he called 'miasms'. Homeopathy staged a significant comeback in the 1970s, perhaps because it was compatible with the beliefs of the New Age movement.

Modern science denounces it as 'quackery' and 'fraud'.

Answer: Hypnotism can be effectively used in the treatment of pain

Hypnosis is an altered state of mind marked by increased attention, concentration and suggestibility. It has been found to be effective in treating pain, irritable bowel syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder and insomnia. Some people are much more easily hypnotised than others and some are totally resistant to the process.

When hypnotised, you still have free will and moral judgment, and you cannot be influenced to say or do anything against your will. Although it may be possible to retrieve memories during hypnosis, you may also be more likely to create false memories while in a trance-like state; therefore this cannot be seen as a reliable process.

Answer: South Africa

A sangoma is a traditional Zulu healer or diviner who employs music, dance, the interpretation of dreams and the throwing of bones to discover evil and diagnose disease. The tradition is based upon the belief that ancestors in the afterlife guide and protect the living through the medium of the sangoma who works himself into a trance that allows an ancestor to take temporary possession of his body and provide the required cure. Sangomas work in a sacred healing hut or indumba, where their ancestors are believed to reside.

Answer: One who knows

The word 'shaman' is derived from the Manchu-Tungus word 'saman' meaning 'one who knows'. Shamans are variously believed to heal disease, communicate with the spirit world and escort the souls of the dead to the afterworld. They use altered states of consciousness such as trances to access this spiritual energy and direct it into our physical world for purposes such as healing.

The origins of Shamanism lie in Northern Europe and parts of Northern Asia.

Answer: Haiti

Vodou first developed in Haiti among West African slaves imported by European settlers as a source of labour. It is a synthesis of various traditional West African religions and evolved over the 16th to 19th centuries. It teaches belief in a supreme being called Bondye who is served by a number of spirits called 'Iwa'. Followers use rituals including drumming, singing and dancing to allow the Iwas to possess them, this being considered a valuable and positive spiritual experience. Louisiana Voodoo also derives from the same West African roots but combines elements of the folk Catholicism practised by the dominant French and Spanish colonists of the region.

Answer: Aqueous humour

The four humours of the Ancient Greeks were black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. They also took into account such factors as mental health, spiritual health, emotional health, diet and environment. Doctors were able to set broken bones, amputate limbs and drain fluid from lungs - all of course without anaethesia.

They also performed bloodletting because they thought that having too much blood (known as plethora) could cause illness.

Answer: Spain

Reconstructive nasal surgery is documented in India as far back as 800 BC. A partial face transplant was carried out in France in 2005, and in 2010 a team of Spanish doctors carried out the first full face transplant on a man injured in a shooting accident. Walter Yeo, a sailor whose face was badly disfigured in the Battle of Jutland in WWI, is considered the first recipient of modern plastic surgery.