Review article
Public health in the traditional behaviour culture of the Bosniaks
Ajnija Omanić
; Institute for Social Medicine. School of Medicine. University of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Mevlida Serdarević
; Museum of Sarajevo, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Abstract
Aim: To select characteristic examples from the traditional behaviour of the Bosniaks and to indicate the positive public health meaning thereof.
Methods: The historical-analytical method has been used combined with consultation of many a written and oral tradition.
Results: In separate chapters, the following features have been presented as typical examples from the traditional culture of the Bosniaks, which are distinctively reflected in the function of protecting and promoting public health: the water cult, water as general asset, water and its use for public purposes, public and private hamams (baths), private home baths, abdestluk or abdesthana (washstand for the ritual ablution), public toilets, and some other forms of traditional behaviour related to the health culture such as hand washing, washing after using the toilet, circumcision, as well as depilation, henna and hennaed fingernails.
Conclusion: Generally, Islamic doctrine is reflected in the fields of personal hygiene, public health, and the health culture in general, in the sphere of family relations, the culture of living, of environment, and the like. All of these shaped a certain behaviour culture model in this and other related areas.
Keywords
history of medicine; ethnomedicine; public health; Islam; Bosnia and Herzegovina
Hrčak ID:
82278
URI
Publication date:
15.12.2006.
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