India - Survey on Level of Living of TRIBALS July-June 1988-89, NSS 44th Round

6.10.2 If an ailment noted in column (14) has been treated according to medical advice, code 1 will be entered here. If the ailment has not been treated for some reasons or other, the entry in this column will be 2. Untreated illness will include cases of self drugging and also treatment on the advice of non-medical but knowledgeable persons. However, in rural India, particularly among the tribals, there are medical practitioners who follow indigenous system of medicine other than ayurvedic and unani. It is to be first ascertained as to whether such system of medicine is well recognized and respected by local people. If it is so, a person treated by a practitioner of this system of medicine will be considered as treated, otherwise not. Care should be taken not to include the cases of faith healing etc. under this system. Generally, the tribal medicine man prescribes herbal or animal based medicine. It is to be noted that if after recovery from an ailment 0which was treated) a fresh spell of the ailment starts during the reference period for which no further consultation is done and the ailment is treated as per an earlier prescription, the case of ailment will be recognized as untreated.