This study analyses the development of health care in Haiti as it has emerged from a syncretic cultural background. The historical bases of the social and cultural practices surrounding health and illness are described as four separately developing but interacting strands--domestic medicine, mercantile medicine, official medicine and Creole medicine. The thesis interprets this heterogeneity of health-care beliefs and practices using the theoretical concept of a disemic culture, in which diverse cultural codes interact, to provide occasions for the situational negotiation of health care. / Case studies of domestic groups suggest that the domestic unit is the determining factor of health status, and the necessary focus for health development policy. The resources of the health care system outside the domestic unit are shown to contribute little to the health status of the population.

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