Remedios caseros: Mexican American home remedies and community health problems.

A sample of 1235 case examples of remedios caseros (home remedies) was analyzed to determine the morbidity patterns for "home treated" ailments in Mexican American communities in South Texas. A group of seventy most commonly encountered ailments was discovered, as described in the paper. An analysis was made of the variations within the morbidity patterns of these ailments in relation to the age and sex of the informant. Parallels are drawn between the research findings and the results of conventional morbidity research efforts. Investigations of the patterns of community health problems in the United States are of relatively recent advent. and are normally pursued within the context of a demographic analysis of morbidity. While morbidity has been defined by Tomlinson [1, p. 138] as "the study of illness", the more commonly accepted definition is that of the United States National Health Interview Survey, which defines morbidity as: basically a departure from a state of physical or mental well-being, resulting from disease or injury, of which the individual afflicted is aware. Awareness connotes a degree of measurable impact on the individual or his family in terms of the restrictions and disabilities caused by the mor-