Traditional use of the Andean flicker (Colaptes rupicola) as a galactagogue in the Peruvian Andes

This paper explores the use of the dried meat and feathers of the Andean Flicker (Colaptes rupicola) to increase the milk supply of nursing women and domestic animals in the Andes. The treatment is of preColumbian origin, but continues to be used in some areas, including the village in the southern Peruvian highlands where I do ethnographic research. I explore the factors giving rise to and sustaining the practice, relate it to other galactagogues used in the Andes and to the use of birds in ethnomedical and ethnoveterinary treatments in general, and situate it within the general tendency in the Andes and elsewhere to replicate human relations in the treatment of valuable livestock. The bird's use as a galactagogue appears to be motivated by both metaphorical associations and its perceived efficacy, and conceptually blends human and animal healthcare domains

Strategic canonisation : sanctity, popular culture and the Catholic Church

In his twenty-seven year reign (1978-2005), Pope John Paul II created not only more saints than any other pope in history, but also more saints than all the other popes put together since Pope Urban VIII centralised control of saint-making in 1634. This article argues that the elevation of ‘celebrity saints’, such as Padre Pio and Mother Theresa, can be seen as an attempt on the part of the Catholic Church to strengthen its presence within the arena of popular culture. Through a sustained programme of ‘strategic canonization’, John Paul II promoted models of sanctity that conveyed very clear social and political messages. Such messages were amplified through extensive Catholic media and, where ‘celebrity saints’ were involved, through the secular media too. These processes are analysed first, in relation to the general area of sexual politics; and secondly, to the Church’s historic relationship with Nazism. Whilst John Paul’s programme may not have achieved all that it intended, it clearly demonstrated the Catholic Church’s unique capacity to reinvent very old forms of cultural policy for changing times

Nazism, Religion, and Human Experimentation

Multiple factors have been identified as contributing to the willingness of physicians and scientists to participate in the development and conduct of experiments carried out on Nazi concentration camp prisoners, including the economic challenges then facing physicians, the potential for increased status and power in the Nazi government, and their own hostility toward Jews and others deemed “not worth living.” They conducted these experiments against a backdrop of their societies’ longstanding anti-Semitic sentiments, the promulgation of anti-Jewish rhetoric by Christian authorities, and the incorporation into law of increasingly severe and restrictive anti-Jewish measures and, ultimately, embraced efforts to eradicate all Jews and evidence of Jewishness. This chapter argues that religion was relevant not only to the question of who was targeted by Nazi medical policy—Jews, conceived of by the Nazis as a race rather than a religion—but also to the question of who was doing the targeting—physicians who appear to have identified religiously primarily as Christians and who interpreted Nazi dogma as congruent with their religious beliefs and teachings.https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44150-0_