Pasma
Definition
Pasma is a Filipino folk illness attributed to an imbalance between hot (init) and cold (lamig) states of the body, classically triggered when a person heated by labor, exercise, or fever is exposed to cold — bathing after heavy work, walking barefoot on cold floors, or drinking iced drinks while sweating. Manifestations blamed on pasma include trembling or weak hands, numbness, muscle pains, blurred vision, fatigue, and in extreme tellings paralysis or deformity.
Identities
| Source | Identifier |
|---|---|
| Wikipedia | Pasma |
| Wikidata | Q17084203 |
| DBpedia | N/A |
Also Known As
Pasma syndrome (in medical-anthropology writing); the hot-cold imbalance model; closely tied to the related folk concept of “binat” (relapse from premature exposure after illness or childbirth).
Examples and Analogies
The folk model works like hot glass cracked by sudden cold water: a body “opened” by heat is thought to seize up when chilled. Medical anthropologists group pasma with the Latin American “aire” complaints and Chinese wind-intrusion illnesses — humoral systems that explain sickness as mishandled transitions between thermal states.
Usage Scenarios
The concept structures everyday choices: laundresses timing baths away from washday heat, athletes and boxers forbidden cold showers after training, workers resting before washing, and postpartum women observing bathing restrictions. Traditional healers diagnose “pasma” when pain or tremor follows such exposures.
Strategies
Prevention emphasizes gradual cooling — resting until the body “closes,” using tepid water, and avoiding cold drinks while overheated. Folk treatment turns to hilot massage with warmed coconut oil, herbal steams and dips (paligo) with leaves such as sambong or tanglad, and dietary adjustment toward “neutral” foods.
Security and Safety Measures
Because trembling, numbness, and weakness can signal neuropathy, thyroid disease, stroke, or diabetes, clinicians are taught to ask about pasma beliefs and to convert them into bridges for care rather than points of ridicule. Health-education materials stress that traditional management should not delay consultation when symptoms are progressive or severe.
Historical Context
The hot-cold humoral framework entered the islands with Spanish colonial medicine and merged with indigenous notions of bodily balance. Twentieth-century ethnographies documented pasma among masseurs, midwives, and laborers, and it remains one of the most widely invoked folk diagnoses in both rural and urban Philippines.
Challenges and Controversies
Biomedicine finds no physiological mechanism for pasma, and debates persist over postpartum bathing restrictions (hygiene benefits versus perceived relapse risk). Critics warn of care delay; defenders argue the rules encode restorative rest and that dismissal of the belief erodes trust between patients and providers.