Consultation in Traditional Medicine and Western Medicine for Cases of Rite of Passage During Epidemics A Medical Anthropological Study

During the epidemic season, the normal daily life of people changes completely. In order to control the spread of disease, people have to move from their familiar lifestyles. In an epidemic situation, the instructions given to control the disease in Western medicine are issued to the people in a legal form. For example, the laws imposed by the health sector for things like lockdown, and quarantine can be mentioned. Other health tips are made known to the public using various media. In the past, this situation takes a different form. In many cases, the traditional medicine emphasizes the ways in which people’s lifestyles should change during an epidemic, through rituals and cultural social practices. Apart from marriage, other rites of passage cannot be postponed due to an epidemic situation. A birth, a puberty, and a death should be done hygienically, even in an epidemic situation, following restrictive practices. What are traditional and Western medicine recommendations to deal with cases of human rites of passage during the epidemic? What are their similar inequalities? These are the research questions of this research. This research aims to comparatively study the advice given in traditional medicine and Western medicine in performing rites of passage cases during the epidemic period. This study falls within the descriptive research category, which is situated between social science and anthropology research. Colombo district and Monaragala district of Sri Lanka were selected as the study area of the research and 05 traditional practitioners and 05 Western medicine doctors from one district were selected as the total sample of 20 data contributors under the purposive sampling method. According to this research, it seems that during epidemic conditions, more attention was given to dealing with health advice for birth, puberty, marriage and death. Restrictions on rituals, food preparation, and even other routine practices can be seen in both traditional and Western medicine. Similarities can be seen in traditional and Western medicine when it comes to imposing social restrictions. Nonetheless it can be concluded that these restrictions are directed to the people in the form of rituals related to cultural characteristics in the traditional system, and in legal form as health advice in the Western system.