الطب الشعبي في الجزائر العثمانية من خلال مخطوط إعلام أهل القريحة بالأدوية الصحيحة

Abstract EN

The health situation in Algeria during the ottoman period was characterized with deterioration, poorness, and the spread of diseases and epidemics that had a negative impact on the vivid circumstances and the demographic growth.

consequently, the Algerian society resorted to the popular medicine, which relies on herbs and oils, to face some diseases.

thus, the therapeutic means were simple.

in the same context, the foreign sources written by the travellers and prisoners considered popular medicine as mythical and weird practices.

moreover, these sources considered that the popular medicine healers were practicing witchcraft.

some prescriptions were effective in healing some slight diseases; however, they could not face severe epidemics.

therefore, this paper attempts to define popular medicine, its therapeutic ways, and how it merged with witchcraft.

to do so, we relied on a manuscript that is kept in the Algerian national library and some local and foreign sources in order to compare the local vision with the western.