Interesting - there are some healing practices where the body is whacked 
with a bundle of bamboo twigs to stimulate the body systems.  -=mark=-

steve wrote:
> I was wondering the other day while watching some people ruing through 
> brush and trees on the show ManTracker, if there was any benefit to 
> being whacked by a lot of bushes and small tree branches.  Perhaps an 
> immune stimulating effect?  Running through the thick and thin of things 
> while chasing food or being chased might have produced this effect 
> regularly.
> 
> I've always assumed that modern man has higher iron levels since Paleo 
> man probably lost a lot more blood from cuts, scrapes, parasites, 
> hunting injuries, etc so that giving blood might be a good thing since 
> it would lower iron levels (higher iron helps infectious bacteria to 
> reproduced) and force replacement of blood cells with more youthful 
> ones. Stimulating the skin from hunting/running might be something we 
> adapted too also benefit from.
>