Anthropology Archive

HotCold Theory in Mexican American Ethnomedicine

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The hot-cold beliefs in Mexican American ethnomedicine are based on principles of classification that have little if anything to do with temperature. Foods are a primary area in which hot-and-cold concepts are applied, but the conceptual framework is also applied to colors and illness. Cold foods include fruits and vegetables whereas meats, spicy foods, and alcohol are considered to be hot. Similarly, red is generally considered to be hot whereas blue is a cold color. Conditions such as menstrual cramps and pneumonia are considered cold, but pregnancy, diabetes, and hypertension are considered hot. The classification of illness, medicines, and foods with respect to this system has a strong effect on patients' compliance with biomedical treatments.

The treatment of hot-cold diseases follows the principle of "neutralization" in which a condition is treated with a substance with opposite qualities. These principles can be employed by the health care provider to ensure compliance. If a health care provider prescribes a diet, treatment, or colored medication without taking into consideration the client's point of view with respect to their classification as having hot or cold effects, noncompliance may result. As an example, common colds are generally thought to be a "cold" disease that should be treated by hot remedies. However, the frequently recommended juices are seen as cold substances and therefore not appropriate for a cold disease. Rather than focusing on juices as a source of fluids, other liquids such as teas, soups, and the like can be given with the same (or better) medical effects and without conflict with the client's beliefs system.

The hot-cold theory, therefore, can be used by providers to reinforce adherence to the regular treatment regimen. For instance, if a client considers a disease and the remedy to be cold conditions or substances, compliance with the cold medical treatment might be achieved by providing the patient with an additional substance to counteract the cold properties of the medicine. These could be foods, activities, or other medications or placebos. However, because the hot-cold theory and its applications vary widely, the health care provider must determine the particular clients' beliefs and discuss how an appropriate balance might be achieved.

but they are seen more as the consequence of other causes rather than causes themselves. In many cultures, however, emotions may be seen as causes of illness. This includes a wide range of ethnomedical theories of illness found in Mexican and Mexican American cultures documented by Kay (1996). Besides susto, discussed earlier, these include celos (jealousy), corage (rage), envidia (envy), tristesa (sadness), nervios (nerves, anxiety), and others that have an explicit notion that emotions lie at the cause of emotional imbalance. Emotions are natural causes of illness, but these theories make assumptions about causes of maladies that are similar to personalistic theories: that a malady is the result of someone's or something's ill intentions.

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