Landscape, Memories, and Medicine: Traditional Healing in Amari, Crete

Cretan folk medicine has a long, yet obscure history. Popular medical handbooks from the Byzantine era forward incorporated material rooted in ancient medicine and routinely claimed Hippocrates and Galen (among others) as sources. Exhibiting numerous similarities in both content and style to these earlier handbooks, the notebook of early twentieth century Cretan village healer, Nikolaos Theodorakis, records a broad spectrum of cures. An examination of both the botanical materia medica Theodorakis used and the manner in which he employed his skills demonstrates underlying continuities in the healing tradition and, equally, its capacity to evolve: mutating, adapting, accreting over time. Even today in Crete traditional therapeutic plant use competes—and sometimes even co-exists—with modern medicine. Three characteristics of Cretan traditional medicine are the key to its resilience: a respect for the authority of tradition, an ability to experiment and innovate, and an intimate knowledge of the resources of the local landscape.