We’re still on the hook with Microkhan Jr., at least until the early afternoon. We’ll try to check back in then, as we don’t want a long-gestating post on Algeria’s legacy of anti-Americanism to go to waste. In the meantime, we present you with two data points involving public health in Mongolia. The video above should be self-explanatory—the nation’s capital has some serious air-quality issues. Beyond that, according to the very first line of this 1993 paper, traditional Mongolian medicine presents a rather unusual remedy for children suffering from breathing problems:
Genghis Khan in the 13th century was probably brought up imbibing his mother’s early morning urine as a remedy for his childhood episodes of acute respiratory infections.
It probably speaks volumes about our thought process that our initial reaction to this sentence was not outright disgust, but rather puzzlement over what early morning urine has to offer versus, say, mid-afternoon urine. When we have time, we’ll have to thumb through some Medieval Mongolian medical texts to discover the answer.
Gramsci // Jun 22, 2010 at 9:11 pm
Ayurveda must have made its way from India through Tibet. There may have been some hybridizing of that with Chinese medicine’s charting of how qi flows in different channels more strongly at different times– hence early morning urine might be thought to have better qualities than later in the day.
On the other hand, perhaps the Bariachi came up with it. When you can set bones through massage, you’re pretty bad ass.
http://www.wipo.int/edocs/mdocs/tk/en/wipo_iptk_bkk_09/wipo_iptk_bkk_09_topic6_1.pdf
Gramsci // Jun 22, 2010 at 9:13 pm
I would add that I stayed in a family’s home in Inner Mongolia on the way to visiting Genghis Khan’s tomb, and their tea tasted distinctly urinish. This doesn’t make me feel any better about that…