ABSTRACT
Cultural conceptions of physiology affect people's understanding of bodily processes and behaviour related to the prevention, diagnosis and management of illness, and the maintenance of health (Helman, 1990). Medical anthropological research on illness, disease and treatment has a long history (Paul, 1955), yet surprisingly, there has been relatively little research on the human body as such, or on its substances: Loudon's paper (1977) on matter — as well as Douglas' enduring work (1966) — are important exceptions to this. Much of the other work on matter has focused on blood, specifically menstrual blood. Blood provides the metaphor for social relationships, health and well-being, kinship ties, personality and psychological states in different cultural contexts (Adams, 1955; Snow, 1976; Like and Ellison, 1981; Martin, 1987; Davis, 1988; Chirawatkul, 1993). 1 This chapter describes beliefs of blood held by villagers in northeastern Thailand, and explores the relationship of the beliefs to perceptions of reproductive health and illness and the influence of these beliefs on women's perception of menstruation, lochia, and menopause. In providing an account of northeastern Thai understandings of the nature and function of blood, this chapter allows comparison both with other papers in this volume (e.g. Rice, Whittaker) and beyond.
