Este artigo, de autoria de Madel Luz e Kenneth Rochel de Camargo Jr, foi publicado na edição especial da Revista Curare (v. 12, 1997), intitulado The Medical Anthropologies in Brazil, edição de Annette Leibing, Berlim, páginas 47-58.
Summary
This paper reports the main hypothesis and the initial findings of an undergoing project of comparison of different medical systems, studied as medical rationalities, defined in terms of six dimensions: cosmology, medical doctrine, diagnosis, morphology, vital dynamics and diagnosis. The comparative study of four rationalities (Contemporary Western, Homoeopathic, Traditional Chinese and Ayurveda Medicines) yielded two different paradigms, one denominated vitalist or bioenergetic (shared by the last three) and the other termed biomechanical, specific to the first. Nevertheless, several similarities were noticed, specially when approaching actual therapeutic practice. The initial findings related to one of the rationalities (Contemporary Western Medicine) are presented in the closing sections of the paper.