Alternative Medicine?: A History [Kindle Edition] Author: Roberta Bivins | Language: English | ISBN:
B005PUWXC8 | Format: PDF, EPUB
Alternative Medicine?: A History
Download books file now Alternative Medicine?: A History from 4shared, mediafire, hotfile, and mirror link Walk into the local health food shop or pick up today's paper and the chances are that you'll see adverts for acupuncture and herbal medicine, hypnotists and homeopaths. Some doctors and scientists mourn the lost lustre of mainstream medicine and complain about a new breed of 'irrational' consumer.
But what exactly is 'alternative' medicine? Is the astonishing popularity of alternative and multicultural medicine really such a recent development? And, given the success story of modern biomedical science, why are alternative and traditional treatments now so fashionable? Has the impersonal chill of high-tech medicine driven consumers into the arms of charismatic quacks? Or is it the cost of western medicine that makes its competitors look so attractive? Do patients seek hope, holism, or
just the thrill of rebellion?
This book seeks answers to all these questions and more. Comparing the medical systems of China, India, and the west - both mainstream and alternative - Roberta Bivins shows how medical expertise has migrated from one culture to another. From acupuncture in Regency England to homeopathy in the 'Wild West', Bivins unearths the roots of today's distinctions between alternative, complementary, and orthodox medicine, and shows how popular interest in medical alternatives - often of exotic origin -
is a phenomenon with a long and fascinating pedigree. Download latest books on mediafire and other links compilation Alternative Medicine?: A History [Kindle Edition]
- File Size: 1436 KB
- Print Length: 264 pages
- Publisher: OUP Oxford; 1 edition (October 4, 2007)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B005PUWXC8
- Text-to-Speech: Enabled
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- Lending: Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,251,686 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
Alternative Medicine? A history, by Roberta Bivins, Oxford University Press, 2007, 258 ff.
The author of this book, on cultural cross-fertilization of medical knowledge over past centuries, particularly between East and West, is a lecturer in the History of Medicine at Cardiff University. Her primary focus here is on how medical investigative techniques practiced in the East came to be used in western medicine. The quite long Introduction (one-fifth of the book) discusses attitudes in the West to medical treatments of both East and West from medieval times on. The concept of a `vital force' found in techniques from ayurveda to homeopathy is explored.
The first chapter proper focuses on the use of moxabustion in the treatment of gout and then goes on to cover the use of meridians of `chi' (spiritual energy) in acupuncture. Chapter 2 is about mesmerism and homeopathy, both of nineteenth century European origin. Chapter 3 looks at the scientific study of acupuncture in Europe and homeopathy and compares the attitudes of eastern and western cultures to these techniques. Chapter 4 reverses the process and looks at how eastern countries viewed some western techniques, particularly homeopathy and mesmerism, at a time when western medicine was becoming increasingly materialistic and these techniques were far from being widely accepted even in Britain. Until the discovery of anaesthetics for surgery and Pasteur's discovery of germ theory to provide more effective treatment of infections, allopathy was far from being either widely respected or effective in the west.
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