Disease and its representations, the forms of perception of the normal and the pathological: its treatments. Notes about the Medical Anthropology of Francois Laplantine

Abstract

The following article reviews some of the concepts proposed by F. Laplantine in his book Antropología de la Enfermedad. Such concepts point to what he calls "the elementary forms of disease." From the analysis of the different ways of 'representing' the etiology of disease in different cultural contexts and pointing out the different treatment options, the article reviews the assumptions on which medicine is sustained in the West, mainly when they influence social, cultural and subjective configuration.  The analysis leads to the discernment of some assumptions and the verification of the practical application of medicine in the western construct related to politics, economy, and culture. Of course, this goes beyond the necessary acknowledgments of the daily practice in many of the activities that medicine supports. In this sense, the article questions the notions of 'health' and 'mental health' as ​​propositions of an ideological nature that articulate certain criteria about life and death, and from them they become agents of norms that affect the cultural and subjective organization.