Mayan medicine could not do anything against smallpox imported in the 16th century by Spanish settlers. On the other hand, she already mastered herbal medicine and sophisticated surgical techniques in the 6th century.
If you are reading these lines, it is because you survived December 21, 2012. It is therefore necessary to face the facts, those who predicted the end of the world have obviously not yet unveiled all the secrets of the Mayan calendar. Or rather calendars, because the first inhabitants of southern Mexico, Guatemala and Belize used several calendars in parallel. The one to whom we owe the pre-apocalyptic turmoil of the last few days had cycles of 1,525 years, the last of which ended yesterday. Another was based on the solar year, which the Mayans had estimated to be 365 days with an accuracy worthy of modern astronomy. As for the most sacred of all, still used by certain communities, especially in Guatemala, it is made up of 260 days, or the equivalent of 9 moons, exactly the time of a pregnancy.
The whole Mayan culture is based on this notion of alternating cycles, a guarantee of harmony. Mayan medicine, a surprising mixture of science and religion, is no exception. There is no question of separating the biological from the psychic, the social, the environmental and the cosmic. Our health is the point of perfect balance between who we are and what surrounds us, illness is only the apparent sign of an imbalance. In Chiapas, in the south of Mexico, you will therefore be explained that spreading fertilizers is a lack of respect for the land which, in turn, can cause headaches and stomach pains to those who use them, or even make them infertile. Our Western medicine suspects pesticides of being endocrine disruptors, the symptoms observed are ultimately not so distant …
During the heyday of the Mayan era, between the 6e and the 9e century, medicine was practiced by the religious elite. These priests succeeded one another from father to son and their knowledge was transmitted only within the family. The rediscovery since the 19the Mayan cities (Chichen Itza or Uxmal in Mexico, Tikal in Guatemala …) buried by the forest and forgotten, allowed to bring to light the tools available to these doctors. And they weren’t rudimentary. The Mayans knew how to suture wounds with human hair and reduce fractures. They treated cavities and placed finely crafted dentures in jade and turquoise. Surgery was also performed using obsidian blades. The women gave birth squatting, leaning on their husbands’ knees and assisted by a midwife. These traditional births are still numerous in rural areas.
As medicines, the fauna and especially the flora were called upon to concoct remedies that could be ingested, smoked or even applied directly to the skin. Pathologies, foods and plants were divided into two groups: hot and cold. Fevers, diarrhea and nausea, for example, were considered “hot” illnesses. To treat them, it was therefore necessary to use cold plants such as hornwort or red sage and avoid hot foods such as garlic, pepper or ginger. Conversely, a cold illness like cough, constipation, or paralysis was treated with hot plants and cold foods. Many Mayan herbal medicine plants are the source of the active ingredients of our current medicines. Guatemala has integrated Mayan medicine into its public health system, so that medicinal plants can be prescribed in hospitals. But Mayan medicine and its herbal medicine only subsisted in certain indigenous communities. In Mexico and Guatemala, associations such as Omiech and Medicos Descalzos are organizing themselves so that this ancestral medical knowledge does not disappear and that it can be used by local populations in regions where the notion of medical desert is literal.
