Rural areas of India may have few doctors or other health resources. Instead, many people use traditional healers. These faith-based healers, or witch doctors, sometimes have strange theories about how the body works.
In West Bengal, for example, some people have long believed that getting bitten by a dog leads to the birth of puppies. Dr. Kumar Kanti Ghosh is a psychiatrist. He helped document this belief in so-called puppy pregnancy syndrome for an article. It appeared in the Lancet medical journal in two thousand three.
例如在西孟加拉邦,一些人长期以来一直认为被狗咬伤会生出幼犬。库马尔·坎蒂·戈什(Kumar Kanti Ghosh)博士是一名心理医生。他帮助把这个被称为小狗妊娠综合症的信念记录到一篇文章中。该文章2003年发表在《柳叶刀》医学杂志上。
His interest started when a nine-year-old boy came to his health clinic about ten days after being bitten by a dog.
他的兴趣始于一位九岁男童在被狗咬伤十天后来到他的诊所。
KUMAR KANTI GHOSH: "He believes that he had developed a pregnancy with a puppy inside his abdomen. And sometimes also his parents have said that sometimes the boy is barking like a dog."
戈什:“他认为自己腹内怀有一只幼犬。有时他的父母也说,这名男童有时像狗一样叫唤。”
A healer named Budheswar Singh says his mixture of yogurt and herbs has cured many people. "If the man is brought to me on time, I can give him my medicine and he will be all right."
Sanjay Samui is a medical doctor who wishes people would stop believing ideas like this. "They are uneducated village people -- they still hold on to such superstitions," he says. He tells everyone that in no situation can a puppy be born inside a human body.
The national government spends about one and a half percent of India's gross domestic product on health care. This is among the lowest rates in the world. It means faith healers are the only choice in some places. The healers spread medical myths and even build distrust against doctors.
But in some countries, doctors may seek help from traditional healers.
但在一些国家,医生可能会向传统治疗师寻求帮助。
Officials in Russia have counted at least eight hundred thousand alternative healers -- more than the number of medical doctors. Daria Minerova, a healer in Moscow, told a reporter last year that doctors often called on her to either cast spells or clear spells for patients. She said they ask her for help when they have a difficult case in trying to cure a patient.
Health care in Russia is basically free. So cost does not explain why people seek alternative healers. Marina Belorysova, a college-educated English teacher in Moscow, told a reporter last year that people avoid western medical care in Russia for a different reason.
MARINA BELORYSOVA: "Medicine is very poor in Russia. It is very bad. At least they know when they use alternative medicine, nothing really bad will happen, right?"