Biomedicine & Alternative Healing Systems: Issues Of Class, Race, And Gender - Softcover

Baer, Hans A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0299166945 ISBN 13: 9780299166946

Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press, 2001

Synopsis

Examining medical pluralism in the United States from the Revolutionary War period through the end of the twentieth century, Hans Baer brings together in one convenient reference a vast array of information on healing systems as diverse as Christian Science, osteopathy, acupuncture, Santeria, southern Appalachian herbalism, evangelical faith healing, and Navajo healing.
    In a country where the dominant paradigm of biomedicine (medical schools, research hospitals, clinics staffed by M.D.s and R.N.s) has been long established and supported by laws and regulations, the continuing appeal of other medical systems and subsystems bears careful consideration. Distinctions of class, Baer emphasizes, as well as differences in race, ethnicity, and gender, are fundamental to the diversity of beliefs, techniques, and social organizations represented in the phenomenon of medical pluralism.
    Baer traces the simultaneous emergence in the nineteenth century of formalized biomedicine and of homeopathy, botanic medicine, hydropathy, Christian Science, osteopathy, and chiropractic. He examines present-day osteopathic medicine as a system parallel to biomedicine with an emphasis on primary care; chiropractic, naturopathy, and acupuncture as professionalized heterodox medical systems; homeopathy, herbalism, bodywork, and lay midwifery in the context of the holistic health movement; Anglo-American religious healing; and folk medical systems, particularly among racial and ethnic minorities. In closing he focuses on the persistence of folk medical systems among working-class Americans and considers the growing interest of biomedical physicians, pharmaceutical and healthcare corporations, and government in the holistic health movement

About this title

About the Author

Hans A. Baer is professor of anthropology at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He is the author or editor of eight books on anthropological aspects of race, religion, and medicine, including Encounters with Biomedicine: Case Studies in Medical Anthropology.

Review

"A concise, wide-ranging synthesis of the history of alternative medicine in the United States, its social composition, and its relations to conventional biomedicine." - David Hess, author of Science and the New Age"

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0299166945
• ISBN 13: 9780299166946
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 240