Miracle cures as online networks

That the digitization of the written word is intimately tied to the digitization of the social was not a coincidence; the internet as technology and social infrastructure is an extremely complicated and multi-faceted system that relies not only on the computing script at the level of executable code, control instructions, and network protocols, but also on natural language input at the level of the user interface. The digitized word coming in from one end is always subject to post hoc collection, ‘cleaning’, transformation, exploration, clustering, classification, regression, and association rule mining – so that they can be made to say useful things about the social processes that are implicated in their inscription. As miracle cures become collectively digitized, the linearity with which they used to be disseminated (from publisher to readers, from medical families to clients, from clients to their extended network of friends and families) become disrupted and diversified. The decentralized and transnational nature of social networking on the internet also scaled up the propagation of miracle cures, thereby increasing the complexity of their multidirectional flows.

Throughout history, knowledges produced by these different social classes received different levels of marginalization under French colonialism and through competition from the more ‘learned’ and established Chinese medical traditions. Thuốc Bắc (Northern medicine), for example, is commonly associated with the literati class and is heavily influenced by Chinese medicine, whereas thuốc Nam (Southern medicine) is commonly associated with medical families (Monnais et al, 2011). Those who make a living by scouting, growing, collecting, prescribing, and selling raw medicinal plants also contribute to this knowledge ecosystem with their own interpretations and revisions of family recipes through direct interaction with patients, as well as experience with local flora and fauna.

The propagation of these knowledges throughout history has followed flexible patterns and structures that enabled composition, retention, and reperformance, as well as constant revision. These knowledges fulfil clear and immediate functions for communities that maintain them – namely managing illnesses and preserving health – through their ability to vary and respond to different circumstances. Weak ties among traditional medicine (TM) groups on Facebook, for example, provide various types of social support, including informational, emotional, tangible, esteem, and network support (Nguyen, 2021b).