Cartierism is where medical technology is used unacknowledged from a source who is simultaneously vilified and often from indigenous cultures. Cartierism is so named because of the best known historical example.
Cartierism has its roots from Jacques Cartier's European expedition to
Canada in 1535 at the start of European colonization. Cartier and his
crew spent the winter unexpectedly in Stadacona, Quebec, he and his crew began dying of a disease we know today as the deficiency disease called scurvy.
Relations between the Indigenous and the Europeans were by that time strained; nonetheless the indigenous
people healed Cartier's crew with their method of using
L-ascorbate ("vitamin C") in the form of a
tea made from the Arbor Vitae tree.
Despite being saved by them, Cartier rewarded Indigenous
people by taking a dozen as hostage to Europe and upon explaining the information of this medicinal treatment in
France, doctors simply replied, "what could we possibly learn from savages?"
Shortly after that the
British Navy proved citrus fruit would prevent and cure scurvy.
Cartierism is alive today in numerous examples from Aloe vera to zinc.
