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This case study exposes the glaucoma illness experience from anthropological perspective and narrative approach. Glaucoma is a chronic ophthalmological disease that at the beginning is asymptomatic, so on some occasions seeking care is late. From biomedicine, the treatment is pharmacologic and surgical but people use other health cares in a pluralism medical context that is a fundamental element for confronting the illness. The narrative of a sufferer was co-constructed with interviews and participant observation; it shows a difficult process of resignification of previous experiences of visual problems, perception of symptoms, affectations in daily life and difficulties in receiving care. In the illness, experience intervened socioeconomic circumstances, the international migration context, and possibilities of receiving social support. Therapeutic elections were not limited to biomedical control, the sufferer sought to reduce the suffering caused by the sudden outbreak of the disease, carrying out self-care practices and using alternative medicines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a demand for a diversity of therapeutic systems and models that are shown to be subordinate to the hegemonic medical model, as the guiding axis of efficacy and safety. In most international discourses and research, a dispute arises between two systems: the biomedical or conventional and the so-called non-conventional medicines. This article aims to discuss the terms related to the so-called non-conventional medicines and the implications of establishing biomedical practices as a validation mechanism in the articulation of non-conventional medicines in the health system. For this purpose, the study is based on documentary sources. Metasearch engines and generic search engines such as Google Scholar were consulted for the exploration of original and review articles prepared in the period 2002 and 2020 in Spanish, English and Portuguese. In the first place, the incorporation of non-conventional medicines in the discourses of the WHO and PAHO as relevant actors that align national policies on non-conventional medicines is described; secondly, a discussion is presented on the main differences in the use of terms related to nonconventional medicines: alternative, complementary, and integrative and, finally, the implications of establishing the methodological criteria of biomedicine as a validation element are exposed. of non-conventional medicines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Juan Rena fue un clérigo veneciano que acaparó una gran cantidad de cargos y prebendas gracias al servicio prestado al emperador Carlos V. Participó en conflictos y negociaciones de gran relieve político y viajó constantemente. Además, destacó por sus actividades mercantiles y financieras, pero también por la reorganización administrativa del reino de Navarra tras su conquista en 1512. Gracias a su archivo personal, se ha podido recoger un abanico importante de consejos que recibió de diferentes médicos dispersos por la geografía europea, ya fuera personalmente o a través de correspondencia mantenida con ellos. En el presente trabajo analizamos estos consejos y, en definitiva, las diferentes estrategias seguidas por Juan Rena, para atender las enfermedades que le aquejaron.