The problem addressed by this study was to reveal what people of Korean rural villages think about the cause, treatment and prevention of illness. The purpose was to contribute to the building of a concept of health toward the development of Korean Nursing Theory. Subjects were residents of five districts among four counties in a fanning area of Chonbuk province recommended by health workers as appropriate informants. They were interviewed in their home3, using ethnoscientific methods developed in anthropology. The research tool consisted of open questions developed through the literature and preliminary exploratory interviews. Data were analyzed by classifying each concepts of cause, treatment and prevention of illness or illness symptoms collated by frequency and percentaage. The causes of illness are conceived as primarily concrete physical and natural, for examples, overeating, lack of energy, changes in the season and extreme temperatures. Compared to others studies, few supernatural causes related to traditional view of illness were identified. Concepts of the treatment of illness included formal treatments used by modern western or oriental physicians and traditional therapists. But folk medicine used by traditional healers or by the family in the home was most prevalent. The concept of illness prevention originated in the concept of the cause of illness, thus primarily physical and natural, for examples, nutritious food, limiting the amount of food, avoiding becoming cold. When the concept of illness of rural Korean is researched from a sociocultural aspect, the traditional views of an evil cause of ill health and treatment by supernatural methods is not found to be prevalent but folk medicine still occupies a large place in treatment which si often a complex mixture from many mysterious sources. The significance of this study lies in the fact that ethnonursing research can contribute basic data toward the development of Korean nursing theories. Modern western medical cocnepts have not been accepted unconditionally: traditional concepts are alive and dynamic in Korea and must be recognized in Korean nursing.

The purpose of this study is to reinterpretate the history of nursing and health care from the viewpoint of post-structuralism. It has been emphasized that the development of modern health care has been due to the progressive efforts of medicine and to medical discoveries. Medicine has dominated the history of health care rather than nursing or other health professions. The present study adopts the post-structural method by Foucault, which tries to unite language and knowledge. Foucault examines "the institutionalization of knowledge and the power exerted thereby, with special reference to the devices of social regulation and their function over the madness, the disease, the crime, and the sexuality." The concept of power in Foucault's writing is that it is exerted spontaneously in verbal behaviors of individuals through knowledge of everyday life such as definition of body or mind, sexuality and relation ship of family. Therefore as to the problem of power, this study tries to understand the meaning of the health care history through an analysis of the formation of medical discourse. In order to have authority in a power relation, the medical professional asserts that medical discourse in the most scientific knowledge. The authority of medical professionals can be reinforced by the fact that male medical professionals outnumber female. Devaluation of nursing care is reinforced by the medicine which has the legitimate through use of the political skills.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of Chu-ma therapy and to suggest that the therapy is an effective nursing intervention tool to reduce blood pressure. The research design employed was the non-synchronized research method with non- equivalent control group. A total of 30 people with essential hypertension, who were from forty to sixty five years old, participated in the study. The Chu-ma therapy was administered by every day for ten or fifteen minutes for eight weeks from 19, April to 13, June in 1999. In order to evaluate the effects of Chu-ma therapy, blood pressure of the two groups were measured once a week, and physiological parameters (epinephrine, norepinephrine, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides) were measured before and after the treatment. Collected data was analyzed by SAS package. The results of this study can be summarized as follows: 1) There were significant decrease in systolic blood pressure and diastolic blood pressure in the experimental group. 2) There were no significant changes in epinephrine, norepinephrine of the two groups. 3) There were significant decrease in total cholesterol and triglycerides, and HDL- cholesterol increased significantly in the experimental group. 4) The effect of Chu-ma therapy on the measured time on the blood pressure in experimental group was as follows: Both of systolic and diastolic blood pressures were significantly decreased after 5weeks. The result proved that Chu-ma therapy is an effective nursing intervention tool for clients with essential hypertenion. However further research is still necessary to compare the effect with the different periods and number of times for Chu-ma therapy.