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Menstruation: An Ethnophysiological Defense Against Pathogens

Profet acknowledges that various traditional peoples view menstruation as the body's way of ridding itself of pollution [2-4]; however, Profet errs when she asserts that "Such explanations are rooted, of course, primarily in superstition rather than science and fail to specify the source and the form of the pollution" [1, p. 371]. Profet's misconception about traditional ethnophysiological notions is understandable: much of the ethnographic literature on menstruation focuses on menstrual taboos rather than on menstrual processes; moreover, most ethnographic studies have failed to move beyond an unquestioning acceptance of the supposedly inherent pollution of women [5]. As I show elsewhere [6], menstrual taboos and traditional beliefs about the power of menstrual blood are grounded in the culturally constructed role that fluxing menstrual fluids play in kinship and in health. Many aspects of Profet's model are anticipated in Jamaican understandings of the blood's health-related roles. These understandings are quite specific, and Jamaicans support them with empirical observations as well as through experimentation, as when a person uses the noxious content of menstrual blood for poison or to effect sorcery and then observes the results [6, 7].