USE A mustard plaster on your chest for bronchitis. Drink a cup of lemon balm tea when you feel blue. Take apple-cider vinegar in a glass of water to help digestion. Folk remedies like these have been handed down for years. Perhaps you've heard of—or even depend on—some of these treatments to keep you and your family healthy. "Folk medicine" describes the practices and attitudes toward health humans have shared informally over time. These practices are not institutionalized. In fact, they derive their authority from the powerful network of shared experience—not from the approval of a medical establishment or biomedical research (although, certainly, scientific studies may prove the efficacy of some treatments). And, despite hundreds of years ofopposition from modern medicine, folk medicine is still alive and well today.
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