Culture- Bound Syndomes in China

Timothy McCajor reports on the phenomena of culture-bound syndromes in modern China. The author goes on to describe such syndromes as Koro, the famous genital retraction syndrome where the afflicted believes their genitals are retracting into their bodies. The author notes that, "local tradition adds the warning that such an occurrence is usually fatal." Other examples of CMS's include Shenkui, semen loss and excessive Yin (negative/female energy)The symptoms vary in each affliction and modern medical anthropologists are attracted to this phenomena. Western culture seems to love to classify things and provide a comprehensive etic explanation for all culturally emic occurrences. The article supports my supposition by claiming that they "have been of interest to medical anthropologists and ethnopsychiatrists in that they do not have a one-to-one correspondence with a disorder recognized by Western [medicine]" It is this quest for a "one-to-one" explantation of these CBS's that I find to be most troubling. Clearly not all cultures are analogous on a one-to-one basis. Doctors are too quick to label such CBS's like the Windigo as hysteria or psychosis or even hallucinations. Thankfully the author concludes that "The concept is problematic, however, in that it is not a homogeneous category, and the designation of 'culture-bound' can imply that the illness is somehow 'not real', or that a patient's experience can be dismissed as merely exotic."
Often new diseases have only surfaced in specific geographic regions (like malaria, or Ebola) so it is naive to assume that western culture is so prevalent and knowledgeable as to be able to explain and categorize all afflictions everywhere.

http://homepage.mac.com/mccajor/cbs_intro.html