No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Rather than bound to one culture, fallen fontanelle has been labeled as an illness or recognized as a symptom through time and space. The condition may be called siriasus, sitibundum, fontanellae collapsus, el apostema cálido del cerebro, Blatfallen, Blattschiessen, entzündung des Gehirns und der Gehirnhäute der Kleinen Kinder, coup de soleil, sorte de maladie causée par l'inflammation des membranes du cerveau, head-mould-shot, mollera caída, desmollerado, gual, split skull, sutt, nhova, kubabula, chipande, phogwana and dehydration. Defining features of this condition as well as prevention and treatment have corresponded to the specific cultural setting and ethnographic present. Fallen fontanelle (or fontanel) is "a culturally interpreted symptom rather than culture-bound" (Low 1985). The methodological perspective is an ethnohistorical recounting of change in the meaning of this symptom.

The lexicon of illness terms used by Mexican American women is affected by the practice of speaking both Spanish and English and by the coexistence of several health systems. When there is changning participation in various health systems, with increasing interference and code switching, linguistic evidence for these changes may be found. In some cases an English disease name is borrowed. In others, a cognate is coined from an English disease name. Some terms, now no longer useful, are dropped. Finally, some Spanish disease names which do not have equivalents in English or in scientific medical theory may be retained, but there is a shift in the meaning of the words themselves. The direction of the shift is towards semantic correspondence with the concepts of scientific medicine. In these ways the medical lexicon is changed, with the changes reflecting a new medical culture.