• Ethnomedical knowledge is culturally grounded and empirically effective within local illness constructs, continually adapting under Western biomedicine to shape healer roles and patient treatment choices [1] [2] [3] [7] [18] [5].

• Adaptation and cultural evolution provide a unifying framework for studying how medical practices, beliefs, and medical education transmit and transform under cultural contact and acculturation [11] [12] [13] [2] [7].

• Symbolic and etiological models, such as hot-cold balance and humoral theory, underpin local illness concepts and steer acceptance or rejection of modern medicine [14] [18] [19] [3] [5].

• Public health integration and education reveal how urban and rural contexts, acculturation, and social determinants shape the reception and adaptation of medical services [7] [16] [4] [8].

• Ethnography and theory converge to establish ethnomedicine as a formal field, with ethnomedical science and medical anthropology developed through cross-paper dialogues [8] [6] [9] [17] [1].