The project will computerize archival holdings of approximately 210,000 cards containing information on American traditional medicine, a term that covers folk medicine, home remedies, self treatment, alternative medicine (chiropractic, homeopathy, holistic healing, etc.), curanderismo, hoodoo, and related forms. Archive holdings are rich in data on conceptions of health and sickness, disease etiology, prevention of illness, health maintenance, and especially therapy including both magical and natural medicine. The information was assembled over a period of 50 years from published sources, other archives, and field interviews. Data are from such ethnic groups as Anglo, German, Mexican, African, Asian, and Native American in all parts of the U. S., and it spans more than two centuries; there are also references to practices in other countries. The files need to be computerized because of their deteriorating physical condition as well as to make the information more accessible both through the increased searching power of an electronic database and the widespread distribution of the information. Data from the cards will be keyed on a word processing program and imported to a text based program to create a database for distribution on CD-ROM. Indiana University Press, a major publisher of folklore titles including indexes on CD-ROM, is interested in publishing the traditional medicine database. The project might serve as a model for other oral history, folklore, and ethnic culture archives. The archive materials can be used for studies of sources of potential new medicines, for sensitizing health care professionals to alternative medical therapies used by ethnic or other patients, for training medical students, and for historical, sociological, and anthropological research on alternative medical practices in the U.S. past and present.
