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Summary Of The Spirit Catches You And You Fall Down By Anne Fadiman

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After reading “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman, is an interesting book because it talks about the Hmong culture and their believes in medicine. A lot of cultures have their own way with handling medical issues, whether it is with some sort of herbs or whatever that culture uses to help the sick. In the book it’s about a little girl that suffers from having seizures and how the family is trying to use their cultural believes but also uses Western medicine to stop the seizures. It’s really hard for different cultures to assimilate to the American way because they do not fully understand what they’re trying to do which is helping their daughter. They want the help of the doctors but not too much because they still have …show more content…

They felt like they could use a little bit of medicine and a little bit of neeb, but not too much medicine because they felt like it can affect the spiritual healing. The seizures got so bad to the point where in social services stepped in and took the child out of the home because they felt like the parents we’re neglecting her and we’re concerned for Lia‘s safety. She was then placed in foster care because there were signs of mental retardation due to seizures. Her parents believed that her seizures made her special and don’t really know how the severity of seizures really are on the brain. They believe that the body has A finite amount of blood and by giving it away it will be more harmful to yourself. This shows the knowledge of how the human body really works and the lack that they know of. They also don’t believe in autopsies because they feel like it prevents the souls from being reborn. These are the reasons that American doctors frequently are going back-and-forth with Hmong parents and their culture. Being in the medical field you have to take each person’s cultural background and be respectful to their believes even if you don’t agree with them. It’s really hard for some doctors to understand their reasoning or logic behind it. There are many different cultures or religious believes that we as Americans will never understand and we need to respect each other‘s cultures and beliefs and find ways to come to common

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