As a child, medical historian Bivins was treated by a healer in Nigeria and an M.D. in Boston; the experience left her convinced that, though effective, the Western model of medicine is "far from complete." Looking from Aristotle's day to the present, Bivins compiles a history of patient care as performed by the "rival systems" of traditional-cultural healing practices, more or less the global norm before the late 18th century, and the scientific orthodoxy that came to replace it in Europe and America. Looking at such examples as a West Indian herbal cure for gout that gained purchase in 18th century Europe, Bivins traces the infiltration of such ideas as acupuncture, mesmerism and homeopathy into the rapidly calcifying biomedical hegemony of the West, and the "'legitimate' medical offspring" they engendered. Bivins' research is thorough throughout-including a wide range of scientists, thinkers and spiritualists while shifting from Europe to India to the Far East and back-but so is her disdain for a system that posits "increasingly costly" and ever-narrowing options for both patients and practitioners. Her strident tone may not convince anyone not already on her side, but Bivins' history is a provocative, far-sighted take on a long-debated subject.
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"This well written and painstakingly researched book would enhance any history of medicine collection."--Doody's
"Recommended."--Choice
"Alternative Medicine? A History is an excellent achievement and appears on the scene precisely in an epoch when a plethora of misinformation exists regarding the origin and application of a diverse array of alternative and complementary medical healing systems...It will be of great value to both conventional and alternative health practitioners alike in helping to explain the differences, as well as the similarities, between diverse healing modalities practiced around the world today."--HerbalGram
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "A brilliant foil to the privileging of Western medicineEL this is cross-cultural history at its best - lively, acute, richly informative, and wonderfully revealing."--Roger Cooter, Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "Extremely engaging... an imaginative, elegantly written and well constructed account, combining accessibility with good scholarship in the best possible way"--Carsten Timmermann, University of Manchester
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "Ground breaking... Roberta Bivins demonstrates the complex routes that medical knowledge and practice travelled, east to west, north to south, and back again... and disrupts our contemporary notions of "alternative" medicine."--Allan M. Brandt, author of The Cigarette Century: The Rise, Fall, and Deadly Persistence of the Product that Defined America
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "I recommend this book to anyone with more than a passing interest in 'alternative' medicine."--Edzard Ernst, author of The Desktop Guide to Complementary and Alternative Medicine
UNEDITED UK REVIEW: "Roberta Bivins does a much-needed service to history and medicine by demonstrating that 'alternative medicine' is nothing new, but is as old as the first globalizing exchanges between Europe and Asia in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Medicine has seldom been so powerfully presented in its diverse cultural and changing historical contexts. A fascinating and richly illuminating book."--David Arnold, University of Warwick
"This well written and painstakingly researched book would enhance any history of medicine collection."--Doody's
"In the same erudite style reminiscent of her late mentor, the great medical historian Roy Upton, Roberta Bivins both lucidly and entertainingly introduces the reader to the complexities of the principal traditional medical systems which are now becoming common in the so-called 'modern world....'
For such a concise book, it contains a wealth of information regarding the 'workings' [of] various healing systems, including Homeopathy, Ayurveda from India, as well as Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), including acupuncture, moxibustion, and herbal therapies....
Alternative Medicine?: A History is an extraordinary achievement and appears on the scene precisely in an epoch in which a plethora of misinformation exists regarding the origin and application of a diverse array of alternative and complementary medical healing systems."--Armando Gonzalez-Stuart, PhD, University of Texas at El Paso and University of Texas at Austin Cooperative Pharmacy Program
"Recommended."--Choice
"...Roberta Bivins both lucidly and entertainingly introduces the reader to the complexities of the principal traditional medical systems that are now becoming common in the modern world.... For such a concise book, it contains a wealth of information regarding the workings of various healing systems... Alternative Medicine? A History is an excellent achievement..."--HerbalGram