(Article)
a Nishibori Dental Office, Toyoda Dental Office, Tokyo, Japan
b Tokyo Dental Clinic, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tokyo, Japan
b Tokyo Dental Clinic, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Tokyo, Japan
Abstract
Traditional treatments such as acupuncture and oriental herbal medicine have been used to relieve intractable chronic pain. This field work investigated traditional folk medicines used for pain relief in Mongolian pastoral areas. Mongolia is located in eastern Asia, and borders on Russia and China. It covers an area of 1,564,100 km2 (approximately 4 times the area of Japan). Average annual temperature is -2.4°C, and that in January is -20.5°C in Ulaanbaatar, the capital. The population is around 2.7 million, of which around one million people live in Ulaanbaatar. Most of the hospitals and clinics are located in urban areas; there are almost no medical facilities in most of the regions inhabited by Mongolian nomads. The subjects were Mongolian people living in pastoral areas far from the capital of Ulaanbaatar, the northern cities of Darkhan, Erdenet and Bulgan, the western old capital city of Kharkhorin, the eastern city of Ondorkhaan, and the southern city of Saynshand in the Gobi desert (Fig. 1). They were interviewed about their management of toothache and pain due to injury. The interviews were conducted with the help of Prof. B. Amarsaikhan, dean of the School of Dentistry, and also Prof. B. Oyunbat, Prof. J. Urjinlkham, Dr. P. Oyunenkh, Dr. B. Bayarchimeg, and Dr. M. Soyolmaa, staffs of the Department of Conservative Dentistry, School of Dentistry, Health Sciences University of Mongolia. All of the interviewees had used traditional folk medicine to relieve their pain. For the relief of toothache, various materials and methods had been used : rinsing, chewing, filling into the decayed cavity, etc. For rinsing, Hyoscyamus nyger, Artemisia, the urine of camel, their own urine, and tea containing salt had been used. For chewing, Allium sativum L., Stellera chamaejasme L., Yanlinhur, the dung of baragashin, the skin of snake, the warmed tail of sheep, and a salt called Jants containing many kinds of minerals had been used. For filling into the decayed cavity, crushed Allium sativum L., pepper, Khandi hag, skin peeled from the knee of a horse, and the crushed canine tooth of marmot had been used. For the relief of pain due to injury, various materials and methods had been used : drinking, rinsing, and bandaging. For drinking, Rhodiola, Plantago, and Yazhuu as botanical materials, the crushed dung of baragashin and the crushed bone of marmot as animal materials, and soot adhered to pots as mineral materials had been used. For rinsing, tea containing salt, and urine had been used. For bandaging, tea containing salt had been used. The analgesic effects of some of these materials and methods have been mentioned in many books. In recent years, the antinociceptive effects of Artemisia copa extracts and Plantago major extracts have been reported. However, the clinical effects of the results described above are unclear at present, and further studies on the use of traditional medicines for pain relief are needed.
Indexed keywords
EMTREE medical terms: analgesia; article; field work; human; interview; Mongolia; tooth pain; traditional medicine
ISSN: 03865835 CODEN: NSMZDSource Type: Journal Original language: Japanese
Document Type: Article