Book Description

In the first comprehensive exploration of the history and practice of folk medicine in the Appalachian region, Anthony Cavender melds folklore, medical anthropology, and Appalachian history and draws extensively on oral histories and archival sources from the nineteenth century to the present. He provides a complete tour of ailments and folk treatments organized by body systems, as well as information on medicinal plants, patent medicines, and magico-religious beliefs and practices. He investigates folk healers and their methods, profiling three living practitioners: an herbalist, a faith healer, and a Native American healer. The book also includes an appendix of botanicals and a glossary of folk medical terms.

Demonstrating the ongoing interplay between mainstream scientific medicine and folk medicine, Cavender challenges the conventional view of southern Appalachia as an exceptional region isolated from outside contact. His thorough and accessible study reveals how Appalachian folk medicine encompasses such diverse and important influences as European and Native American culture and America's changing medical and health-care environment. In doing so, he offers a compelling representation of the cultural history of the region as seen through its health practices. ... Read more

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Reviews (3)

Courage and Integrity in Science: A Precious Rarety
Courage and Integrity in Science: A Precious Rarety

The Woman Who Knew Too Much: Alice Stewart and the Secrets of Radiation by Gayle Greene. Dr. Stewart is a British physician and epidemiologist (born in 1906 into a large family of physicians) who revolutionized the concept of radiation risk. In the 1950s, while surveying childhood mortalities in the British Isles, she finds that then quite common X-ray examinations during pregnancy doubled the risk for childhood cancer. Fueled by the wrath of radiologists, her work has been viciously derided among the medical establishment for more than two decades. In the 1970s, she finds that some workers at nuclear weapons production sites, such as Hanford, WA or Oakridge, TN are dying of radiation induced cancers, showing that presumed "safe" levels of occupational exposures put these workers at a twenty times higher risk than officially admitted. With that finding she places herself on the "enemy list" of an immensely powerful nuclear weapons establishment, including its scientific elite, and at the center of an international controversy over radiation risks. Stewart's fascinating story, a collaborative memoir told by herself and Greene with verve and humor, is one of a woman scientist's ingenuity, independence, perseverance, compassion, and integrity, a fascinating tale in the checkered history of a mostly male-dominated science. Rudi H. Nussbaum, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Physics and Environmental Science.

Fascinating insight into the history of radiation & medicine
The book spans the lifetimes of Dr. Stewart and her parents. It offers a fascinating description of medicine in Britain in the late 19th century, the entry of women into the medical field, and the institutional resistance in the second half of the 20th century to the fact that low levels of radiation are dangerous. Given the recent announcements by the US Government concerning health risks in the nuclear arms industry, this is a timely and fascinating book. Well written and researched.

Have your children, your daughters must, read this book.
As Research Director of the Hanford Veterans Cancer Mortality Study I have worked closely with Dr. Alice Stewart. I have learned from her, laughed with her and admired her as the most extraordinary human being I have ever known. But, I never knew her well enough. You must read this book! It will give you a new understanding of the meaning of courage and integrity. More importantly - have your children, especially your daughters, read this book. Thank goodness Gayle Greene has written this eminently readable biography of Alice. It allows us to understand where her drive comes from and how Dr. Stewart can suffer the slings and arrows of the federal scientific pygmies who attack her work. The heart of the story, and a key to Dr. Stewart's personality, can be found in the juxtaposition of the the ending words of Chapter 13 where Professor Greene says "Alice is called in by...radiation victims, her investigations turn up cancer in excess ... the studies are handed over to official bodies...the official studies invoke the A-bomb data to discredit her finds....Time passes." 'It's a long, slow business,' she (Dr. Stewart) says." Compare this with one of Dr. Stewart's favorite quotations, "truth is the daughter of time." She has waited, we will wait; but Dr. Helen Caldicott is right "her work may (I say 'will') receive the recognition and thanks of the future." When one finishes reading this marvelous book one cannot help but think of George Sand saying "humanity is outraged in me and with me. We must not dissimulate nor try to forget this indignation; which is one of the most passionate forms of love." Thank the Good Lord for this stunning creature called Alice Stewart. And thank Gayle Greene for helping us to know her just a bit better. ... Read more

Book Description

A beautifully illustrated history of women healers from earliest times to the present day. ... Read more

Book Description

With today's growing interest in alternative medicine, readers will appreciate the holistic approach of Paracelsus, who challenged the medical world's reliance on classical texts and abstract reason. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

An excellent introduction to Paracelsus
Having read Jung's glowing praises of Paracelsus, as well as various accounts of his amazing life, I was very excited to read this book to get a better idea what his actual writings are like. This selection of excerpts is alternately enjoyable and baffling, since Paracelsus was a very complicated thinker with enormous ambitions, and it appears from these excerpts that his reach often exceeds his grasp. He takes an encyclopedic approach to explaining everything about the science of his day as he understood it, completely mingled with his personal theology. The Paracelsian universe is saturated with living and breathing forces, stars influencing everything but in very strange ways that seem to contradict each other, and the inner light of nature leaving signs strewn about everywhere for the enlightened person to interpret. It's rather daunting to read that you really can't just use a particular herb to cure something, because you have to choose the right herb at the right time to fit the current astrological environment as it relates to the person requiring healing. All very heady stuff, and it might be easy to dismiss Paracelsus as a wooly-headed dreamer except for the known historical facts about his rather heroic life, and his reputation for expending great amounts of energy helping the poor.

In summary, the book doesn't (and really couldn't) cover any of the many subjects that concerned Paracelsus in great depth, but it provides a wonderful survey and starting point for additional investigation into this great man's writings. ... Read more

Book Description

This text presents a carefully selected group of readings that allow students to evaluate primary sources, test the interpretations of distinguished historians, and draw their own conclusions.

Book Description

The issues constituting the history of medicine are consequential: how societies organize health care, how individuals or states relate to sickness, how we understand our own identity and agency as sufferers or healers. In Locating Medical History: The Stories and Their Meanings, Frank Huisman, John Harley Warner, and other eminent historians explore and reflect on a field that accommodates a remarkable diversity of practitioners and approaches.

At a time when medical history is facing profound choices about its future, these scholars explore the discipline in the distant and recent past in order to rethink its missions and methods today. They discuss such issues as the periodic estrangement of medical history from medicine, the influence of Foucault on the writing of medical history, and the shifts from social to cultural history and back again. Chapters explore an early history of the field, its transformations since the 1970s, and its prospects for the future.

With diverse constituencies, a multiplicity of approaches, styles, and aims is both expected and desired. This volume locates medical history within itself and within larger historiographic trends, to provide a springboard for discussions about what the history of medicine should be, and what aims it should serve.

Contributors: Olga Amsterdamska, University of Amsterdam; Warwick Anderson, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Allan M. Brandt, Harvard Medical School; Theodore M. Brown, University of Rochester; Roger Cooter, University College London; Martin Dinges, Institut für Geschichte der Medizin der Robert Bosch Stiftung; Alice Domurat Dreger, Michigan State University; Jacalyn Duffin, Queen's University; Elizabeth Fee, National Library of Medicine; Mary E. Fissell, The Johns Hopkins University; Danielle Gourevitch, École Pratique des Hautes Études; Anja Hiddinga, University of Amsterdam; Ludmilla Jordanova, University of East Anglia; Alfons Labisch, Heinrich-Heine-University; Hans-Uwe Lammel, University of Rostock; Sherwin B. Nuland, Yale University; Vivian Nutton, University College London; Roy Porter, formerly University College London; Susan M. Reverby. Wellesley College; David Rosner, Columbia University; Thomas Rütten, University of Newcastle upon Tyne; Heinz-Peter Schmiedebach, University of Greifswald; Christiane Sinding, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale ... Read more

Book Description

From ancient religious rituals and magical incantations, to Renaissance practices such as purging, bleeding, and trepanning, to modern day miracles such as antibiotics, CAT scans, and organ transplants, the advance of western medicine has been nothing short of astonishing.Now, in this richly illustrated volume--boasting 150 pictures, including 24 pages of color plates--readers have an authoritative and wide-ranging history of Western medicine, charting the great milestones of medical progress, from the birth of rational medicine in the classical world right up to the present day.

The history begins in ancient Greece, where medical practice, under the auspices of Hippocrates and others, first looked past supernatural explanations and began to understand disease as a product of natural causes. The book examines the contributions of the great Islamic physicians, such as Rhazes (Al-Razi) and Avicenna (Ibn-Sina), who had a profound impact on the practice of medieval medicine, and it chronicles the slow growth of medical knowledge through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, illuminating the work of figures such as Paracelsus, Vesalius, and William Harvey (who explained how blood circulates through the body). But it has been in the last two centuries that medical practice has made its greatest strides, and Western Medicine provides informative portraits of figures as Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch (the fathers of bacteriology), Wilhelm Roentgen (discoverer of x-rays), and Paul Ehrlich (who pioneered the use of chemicals to destroy disease-causing organisms), and many others.And as the contributors highlight the great medical discoveries, they also cover broader medical and social themes, examining for instance the rise of medical training in universities (beginning around 1200 AD), the relationship in the Renaissance between medicine and art, and the tension between the church and an increasingly secularized medical professional class, tension that continues to this day. The book also explores nursing, midwifery, and the rise of the hospital, traces our slow understanding of the patterns of epidemics and the geography of disease (tracking for example the devastating effects of disease brought about through colonization and the slave trade), and charts our changing attitudes towards child birth, mental disease, and the doctor-patient relationship.

Authoritative, informative, and beautifully designed, this volume offers a fascinating introduction to medicine in the West. In addition to its generous illustrations, the volume includes a glossary, an extended list of suggested further reading, a chronology, and a full index, making it an indispensable reference for anyone interested in medical history. ... Read more

Book Description

Medicine as Culture provides a broad overview on how medicine is perceived and constructed in western societies. The author carefully links the different theoretical perspectives informing scholarship and research directed towards understanding the socio-cultural dimensions of medicine, illness, and the body. Written in an accessible style, the author covers such salient issues as socio-theoretical and feminist perspectives of medicine, cultural representations of illness and disease, the language and visual imagery of medicine, and the development of the patient and power in the doctor-patient relationship. Integrating cultural studies, social theory, anthropology, feminist theories, and contemporary theories of the body, this volume is essential reading for students and scholars in sociology, medical anthropology, health communication, gender studies, cultural studies, and nursing. "This clearly written book is a tour de force. The author succeeds in providing an excellent overview of the way that medicine is experienced, perceived and socially constructed in Western societies. . . Certainly this is a book that many readers will find interesting, stimulating and extremely helpful." --Health and Social Care in the Community "This is a valuable addition to the literature on health and illness and its cultural studies approach ensures that it complements the existing texts in the are.Beyond this, the book reveals just how significant matters of medicine, health and illness are to the functioning and understanding of Western societies." --Sociology "This clearly written book is a tour de force. The author succeeds in providing an excellent overview of the way that medicine is experienced, perceived, and socially constructed in the Western societies. The most exciting part of this book is the chapter on power relations and the medical encounter. . . .It whets the appetite....It is good to see a section on the power relationship between nurses and patients, an aspect of hospital life that is sometimes ignored. The author has managed to summarize theoretical perspectives and recent research studies clearly and simply encouraging the reader to search for other texts." --Alison Chapple, BScSRN, Medical Sociology Unit, Dept. of ... Read more

Book Description

How did typhus come to be viewed as a "Jewish disease" and what was the connection between the anti-typhus measures during the First World War and the Nazi gas chambers and other genocidal medical practices in the Second World War? This powerful book provides valuable new insight into the history of German medicine in its reaction to the international fight against typhus and the perceived threat of epidemics from the East in the early part of this century. Paul Weindling examines how German bacteriology became increasingly racialized, and how it sought to eradicate the disease by the eradication of the perceived carriers. Delousing became a key feature of Nazi preventive medicine during the Holocaust, and gassing a favored means of eliminating typhus. ... Read more

Book Description

Attractively bound and illustrated, Dates in Oncology presents an all-encompassing chronological history of oncology from the ideas of Greek and Roman civilization to the present day. Each entry contains a concise historical or biographical synopsis that helps readers appreciate the developments in anatomy, physiology, pharmacology and technology in the last millennium. The book provides a fascinating, useful record of the landmarks in the development of oncology, including key names and events, from the writings of Hippocrates to the implications of modern techniques and procedures. ... Read more

Book Description

The American Disease is a classic study of the development of drug laws in the U.S. Supporting the theory that Americans' attitudes toward drugs have followed a cyclic pattern of tolerance and restraint, author David Musto examines the relations between public outcry and the creation of prohibitive drug laws from the end of the Civil War to the present day. Originally published in 1973, with an expanded edition in 1987, this third edition contains a new chapter and preface that cover the renewed debate on policy and drug legislation from the end of the Reagan administration to the present Clinton administration. ... Read more

Reviews (3)

Musto is the man
This book is incredible. Musto is the man. I would know. He's my professor. The book is incredibly interesting, especially if you are unfamiliar with the history of drugs, and it is absolutely packed with info. I can't say enough about how insanely intelligent this man is and that he is by far the top expert in the field.

Basic for Understanding Drug Problems in the USA
This is the book on the history of drug policy in the USA. Musto details the whole history of the regulation of addictive from the beginning of the 20th century to the years of the Clinton administration. There is particular emphasis on Federal drug policy. Musto shows well how drug policy has oscillated between relative tolerance and stringent efforts to crackdown on the use of potentially addictive drugs. Musto is particularly good at demonstrating how apparently extrinsic factors influenced strongly Federal response to narcotic regulation. Fears of Federal regulation by physicians, aspects of Progressive era reformist zeal, even foreign policy considerations are shown to be important influences on Federal drug policy. While this is not a social history of drug use, Musto is careful to show how attempts at regulation were often influenced by misperceptions of the extent of drug abuse. There are some surprising aspects to Musto's story. Federal regulation of narcotics, backed by important Supreme Court decisions, was an early example of expansive Federal power superceding state and local regulation. One of Musto's most interesting observations is the considerable extent to which racist fears of Chinese immigrants, Mexican migrants, and African-Americans influenced early efforts to control narcotics tightly. Readers will find this book very informative with a strong sense of deja vu; contemporary debates about drug policy are similar in many ways to debates occurring early in the 20th century. This fact illustrates the difficuly developing sensible and effective policies towards drugs with addictive potential.

him
i didn't actually read the book, but david musto is a cool dud ... Read more

Book Description

An excellent book for the new student! This text provides insight into the depth and subtlety of traditional Chinese medicine by delving into the linguistic and cultural wellsprings of China's venerable past. The authors' knowledge, thoughtfulness, and dedication to their topic clearly radiate from every page. Steven Given, Dean of Clinical Education at Yo San University, has this to say of the book: "Their interweaving of language, religion and culture results in a cogent and highly readable discourse that ties together the elements of culture and medicine. Zhang and Rose's examination of the etymology and structure of the Chinese language is a major contribution to our understanding of how traditional Chinese medicine functions today."

In her forward to the book, Harriet Beinfield, co-author of Between Heaven and Earth, a Guide to Traditional Chinese Medicine, made the following remarks: "[The authors] have performed a great service by clearing a path into the formidably dense thicket that constitutes Chinese medicine in the West. This text provides . . . a window of inestimable value into a world of meaning that satisfies a yearning on the part of many who hunger to know the substrate from which Chinese medicine emerges." ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Flawed, what a waste.
I like the book BUT! I don't feel right about bringing it to school, or recomending it, because of the sex chapters. It would be better with out them. What a waste.

mind, language, perception
The book is extremely courteous in guiding the reader through the basic structure of that enormously complicated thing called Chinese culture. The first part will be particularly helpful to those who do not know the Chinese language in the way it shapes and articulate thought for those who think in Chinese. The entire cosmology upon which medical theories and perceptions have been formulated is laid out as a reflection of the mirror (language) that bears the warpature to best suit the Chinese language. The first part ably shows how the fact that Chinese does not have temporal tenses in its grammar affects the shaping of premises with regard to the body and medicine in Chinese worldview. Food and Chinese cooking are also introduced as important vehicles that have carried Chinese medicine through its path of evolution. The latter part of the book deals with more theoretical concepts, including philosophy, and how they gave rise to and founded certain clinical practices. The book is an organic introduction to a science that is founded and corrected on the lived experience of thousands of cases observed over two thousand years.

Marvellous
It's a great book for all chinese culture lovers It gives us a comprehensive idea of Traditional Chinese Medicine origins and basis . Provides a good biblography too A must for everyone who wants to understand more and more about traditional chinese culture and art of healing

A Must Read!
This wonderful book helps to unravel the mystery of Chinese medicine and thought. I recommend it to all my students and patients, and find it invaluable for practitioners as well. It clarifies the historical Chinese medical world view and offers a succinct and highly enjoyable journey into a different paradigm.

Excellent book!
Anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the origins of TCM should read this book. For me, it created a lot of connections and filled in many holes in my learning. As a student of TCM, general statements are often made about how a particular theory is related to an aspect of religion or culture, but you really don't fully grasp what is meant by those statements. This book goes a lot more in depth into the various cultural and linguistic origins of the medicine, while at the same time inviting the reader to go further in depth in his/her own study. This should be required reading for every student of TCM. ... Read more

Book Description

In the late 1910s, Dr. Harry J. Haiselden, a prominent Chicago surgeon, electrified the nation by allowing the deaths of at least six infants he diagnosed as "defectives." Martin Pernick tells this captivating story--uncovering forgotten sources and long-lost motion pictures--in order to show how efforts to improve human heredity (eugenics) became linked with mercy killing, as well as with race, class, gender and ethnicity. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Remarkable book on an early eugenics/euthanasia physician
This is one of those extraordinary book finds that comes about through sheer serendipity. This book was not recommended, was not widely read, but had been listed as a reference in another book in my readings about the historical context of the medical holocaust which happened here in the United States prior to Nazi Germany's excursion into hell. The title and slight mention given in a bibliography made me stop what I was doing and head for Amazon.com to find out what the book was about. The slight blurb was enough to pique my interest and I sent for the book.

This book is one of the most unique stories I have read in the onslaught of material on the eugenicists and their prejudicial science. Pernick is a historical biographer of medical practicioners and of the early films produced promoting eugenic ideals. During the early 1900's an American physician, Haiselden, very publicly 'allowed' a new-born infant with disabilities to die through withholding food, water, and surgical treatment. This occurrence was not an unusual one for physicians in general. Infanticide had occurred on one level or another, by physicians, midwives, and parents for years especially when infants were disabled and the families were poor. The difference lay in how this particular physican handled the media attention he received. This man courted the media to promote his views on physician assisted killing when children were born with disabilities or deformities. He went even farther and 'starred' in a film which portrayed the situation and the accompanying ethics as held by eugenicists and those who proposed euthanasia for the unwanted in the United States.

The history of early film-making coincides with the major years of influence of American eugenicists. This is history which has been forgotten, which is not on display at the Smithsonian museum, and is only mentioned by the Eugenics ARchive at Cold Spring Harbor. This book is of deep historical importance, and the author does a wonderful job of tying in the influence of the media and science on social movements. Pernick does an outstanding job of presenting the facts involved with as little emotional or critical writing, so the reader are free to develop their own opinions. The research and the restoration of these films (still pictures from the film are included) to the American public is a phenomenol job and this book should be on the list of recommendations for those in biomedical ethics, in medical care, disability rights activists, and film enthusiasts. It is only by remembering this history, and American participation in it, that we can even hope to avoid this from happening again, especially with the completion of the Human Genome Project and the push for physician assisted suicide, as well as the promotion of utilitarian ethics in a world of scarce medical resources... ... Read more

Book Description

Norman Gevitz focuses on the philosophy, teaching, and practice of osteopathy, as well as its impact on the medical community. He describes the theories underlying the use of spinal manipulation developed by osteopathy's founder, Andrew Taylor Still; traces the movement's early success despite heated opposition from the orthodox medical community; details the internal struggles to broaden osteopathy's scope to include the full range of pharmaceuticals and surgery; recounts the efforts of osteopathic colleges to achieve parity with institutions granting M.D. degrees; and looks at the continuing effort by its practitioners to achieve greater recognition and visibility. Gevitz also examines such significant events as the formation of the American Osteopathic Association and teh amalgamation of California D.O.'s with the orthodox medical establishment in the early 1960s. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

History you will need
I bought the book in order to be prepared for my med school interview but never got it quite read. I found out upon my arrival at school in the fall that the book was a required read for my History of Osteopathic Medicine course. The book is a great resource to make a person more familiar with an ever growing branch of medicine; that there isn't just a world of MD's. And who knows, maybe it will get you a bit ahead of the game for your first class in your Osteopathic medical school :o)

Thorough
As chairperson of the social medicine department at Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine, Norman Gevitz knows firsthand the details of ostepathy. This book is a thorough, well-written review of osteopathic medicine's climb into the medical arena; originating from the depths of the mind of its founder, Andrew Taylor Still in the late 1800's, into the growing profession of the 1980's. Unfortunately, however, it does not cover the growth and expansion of osteopathy in the last twenty years of the 20th century. It does explain, though, the legal and social struggles that osteopathy survived in its first 90 years. Gevitz also does a wonderful job explaining what ostopathy is and how it evolved from a holistic, drug-free approach to medical care into an alternative, legally licensed medical practice. I highly recommend this book for osteopathic medical school applicants. It is also an excellent book for those interested in the history and sociology of medicine in the United States.

the best
This book offers an extensive review of the history of osteopathy. It also illustrates this medicines important role in the world, as well as its future direction and how this philosophy views the patient.

Historical
Good history of Osteopathy from 1828 to late 1970s, but the modern osteopathic techniques are not mentioned (book was published in 1982..so a lot is missing in this recent time period). Otherwise a good thorough history.

Great for DO applicants!!
I read this book cover to cover before applying to osteopathic medical school and believe that it made a big difference in getting admitted. I was able to comprehensively discuss osteopathic principles and practice and critically evaluate decisions that the osteopathic profession has made along the way. The book is well researched (I think that it is based on Dr. Gevitz's dissertation) and historically accurate. ... Read more

Book Description

How did our ancestors respond to tuberculosis, the plague of their day? In his remarkable reconstruction of a distant world, Michael Bell has discovered a startling tradition that some may regard as a superstition, but which he sees as a reasoned attempt to vanquish the affliction. Close your eyes and imagine a vampire. Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula. But another kind of vampire was believed to live in rural New England, where on March 17, 1892, three corpses were exhumed from a Rhode Island cemetery. One of the bodies was that of Mercy Brown, who had succumbed to consumption (as tuberculosis was then known). It appeared to her family that she had turned over in her grave. They cut out her heart, which still had blood in it, burned it on a nearby rock, and fed the ashes to her ailing brother. To Mercy's community, she had become a vampire, living a spectral existence, consuming her siblings' vitality, stealing their lives. In his fascinating investigation of this shocking custom, Bell relates the stories of twenty families who dug up the bodies of their loved ones to save the living. From 1790 to his recent conversation with a descendant of Mercy Brown, Bell reveals a widespread tradition that was passed down through generations. Ordinary farmers, confronted with an illness that medicine could neither explain nor cure, blamed the dead. In giving readers the story of Mercy Brown and her contemporaries, Bell shows that, with such maladies as Ebola, mad cow disease, and AIDS, our world is still filled with implacable forces that our ancestors battled with the most potent tool they had--an instinctual belief in their power to heal themselves. ... Read more

Reviews (7)

Correction to previous review
A note about the reviewer who stated Michael Bell explores graveyards with a camera and tape recorder, like an aspiring Art Bell wanna be.

If you read this book, which I strongly recommed for anyone who is looking for a fresh perspective on the tapestry of folklore and legends, you will discover Michael Bell is neither superstitous nor prone to fantasy. He playfully mocks those who lurk in churchyards, hoping to record a whisper from the grave and give themselves a thrill at the same time. "Food for the Dead" seeks to explore how concepts like "modern" vampirism and other legends develop and exist, using genealogical research and good sense. If you're looking for a good scare and juicy ghost stories, keep shopping. In search of a fascinating read? You found it, enjoy!

Excellent New England Folklore
Believe it or not -- and after reading "Food for the Dead" you will indeed believe it -- Vampires are not a literary invention of the nineteenth century, but are rooted in the folklore of many cultures -- including, of all places, rural Rhode Island.

Of course, they did not call them vampires, but the folklore is so similar to vampirism that it is immediately recognizable as the same mythic type.

Briefly: Michael Bell explores a practice that occurred in at least three documented accounts (his research into the archives and newspapers of the time is superb) of the families of tuberculosis victims ("consumption") digging up a recently deceased family member to ensure that the dead family member was indeed dead, and was not preying on the living. Part of the New England folklore concerning consumption was that when family members started dying of the disease in succession, it meant that the first victim was feeding on the living -- and the proof of this was to dig up the deceased person's heart to ensure that it did not contain "fresh" blood -- sure evidence that the dead person was not entirely dead.

Bell finds the practice was not limited just to Rhode Island, but indeed had passed into the folklore of Connecticut and Vermont as well, and the belief persisted among rural folk as late as the 1890s.

Bell discusses many issues in the book, including the origins of the folklore, the prejudice of city people towards rural people (newspaper accounts of the period are pretty harsh in their condemnation of the practice), the history of tuberculosis, the need to protect small cemeteries from vandals and curiosity seekers, and even how some of the source material of the myth found its way into the writings of H.P. Lovecraft.

The book is a very thorough and well researched, and handled sympathetically. Well worth reading.

Vampires? Who needs vampires?
Wow! Next to "Vampires, Burial and Death," probably the best non-speculative look at "real" vampires I've read.
They didn't use the word "vampire" back in the day. The ritual (described in detail by Michael Bell) for the treatment of consumption involved a little bit of exhumation, perhaps some dismemberment, maybe some cannibalism, stuff like that. Today, it would be tough to imagine your entire family dying one by one, and a local elder saying, "Hey, if you dig up Betsy, the first one who died, you may be able to save the rest of your family. Here's how ..."
The most interesting aspect of this book is that it gives an indirect sampling of what folklorists actually do. All the research, detective work, footwork and interviewing seems a lot more substantial than just collecting urban legends or whatever. Buy it!

Out Comes The Dead
Michael Bell's Food For The Dead is not only a great book about American history and folklore, it is a very entertaining read as well. Though a non-ficition book, it does not fall victim to an overought style like most books in the genre can. Bell's writing is very easy to read and very informative. He does not shy away from the truth and always gives his opinions (and justifies them!).

Bell investigated (for nearly 20 years) the vampire legend which began in New England (and still exists there) starting in the late 1600s. It seemed that people believed that the consumption, a deadly desease at the time, was caused by vampires. Bell takes many scenarios and cases he has found throughout New England and investigates them, trying to explain the origin of the legend as well as its outcome.

The book lags a little when Bell tries to link the whole phenomenon with popular myth. This vampire legend differs greatly from the Dracula legend we are used to these days. These vampires are not night-walkers and blood sucking fiends, they kill from their grave! His short lesson in pop culture history is a little too long and a little too obvious for my taste.

I really enjoyed this book. It is a great lesson in history and in American folklore. This is one book that I will want to come back to again and again. This is one of the rare non-fiction book about vampires which does make sense and which does take the reader somewhere we haven't been before. It offered me something new and different, which is rare in this day and age. And for that, Bell's Food For The Dead deserve to stand on a high pedestal on top of all the other paranormal/non-fiction books out there.

Of Spirits & Vampires
In "Food for the Dead" folklorist Michael Bell brings to life tales of terror based on events that took place long ago in the rural cemeteries of New England.
Bell writes of evil spirits and vampires with candor, explaining why bodies were exhumed by rural folk in desperate attempts to thwart the ancient plague of tuberculosis. His style is scholarly without being pondereous. Down to earth, if you'll pardon a pun.
Stories of digging up bodies, removing and burning hearts are well documented. But what would lead ordinary folk to such drastic remedies? Tape recorder and camera in hand, Bell has traveled the back roads of Rhode Island, Connecticutt, New Hampshire and Vermont for 20 years seeking answers to that question.
In the first chapter Bell introduces his readers to Lewis Everett Peck, a descendant of Mercy Brown, whose grave was opened on March 17, 1892, in the hamlet of Exeter, Rhode Island. Peck tells in graphic detail how Mercy's body had turned over in the casket, how her heart still had blood in it and how her heart was burned and the ashes fed to her consumptive brother, Edwin.
Nowhere in Peck's story is Mercy identified as a vampire. But the gruesome details are accurate. And of such fabric are folk tales woven.
With the skill of a practiced story teller Bell soon makes his readers comfortable with his grisly subject. One trail leads to another as he connects first with Mercy, then with Nellie Vaughn, Nancy Young and the Tillinghast and Rose families. He uses newspaper files, countless interviews, family and church histories to build his case.
That bodies were exhumed and corpses mutilated is without question. But why resort to such extremes? Why give credence to ghosts and evil spirits? Bell offers one opinion with these words: "We derive comfort from giving tangible form to phenomena beyond our understanding...By personifying death and disease, we can more easily identify, objectify and perhaps forestall one and eradicate the other."
Did vampires once prey upon innocent country folk? You'll have to read Bell's book "Food for the Dead -- On the Trail of New England's Vampires."
(Carroll & Graf, 337 pp.) ... Read more

Book Description

This book covers remedies from ancient Egypt to the rain forests of contemporary Latin America, and challenges the myth that modern clinical practice is the only effective form of medicine. The authors find that modern research often reveals a rational basis for supposedly outdated ideas. Most important, an increasing number of physicians, pharmaceutical researchers, and scientists are beginning to recognize the wealth of knowledge that can be retrieved from abandoned practices of earlier eras in Western medicine and from outside the boundaries of Western ideas entirely. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

Rational, unbiased reports
The author has made an extensive research on the remedies written about in his book. At the end of the book, he has also advised on how we should accept or not accept old remedies or even modern or popular medical habits - he does not rule out modern medicines. I think a very rational view and discussion was presented.

Like all views given, of course there will definitely be some people who would strongly disagree and deny the book's integrity outright. However to benefit more from intelligence of this book is to have an open mind. Even at the end of the book, I can't bring myself to agree on the urine remedy - but I accept the clear explanations given.

I don't normally buy books and initially I borrowed it from the library, but I'm buying it because I think it's a good book to have for reference at home.

Historical Medical Evolution
Whether or not you buy the conclusions of the authors in regards to the treatments in this book, their discussion and analysis of these treatments in historical context and why the treatments were effective, is extremely important in understanding the evolution of medicine. And if you are someone who is interested in researching folk medicine or discovery of medical treatments, this book is an excellent resource. It certainly presents a lot of information not ordinarily available to the layperson.

Poorly researched. A sounding box for personnal beliefs.
This could have been a good book. The topic is great. Unfortunately, the author allows his personal beliefs to color virtually every aspect of the content thereby allowing the inclusion of many factual errors. No where is this more evident than in the chapter on circumcision. Contrary to the claims in this book, routine circumcision has NO medical benefit. Because it has no medical benefit, NO medical organization in the world recommends it. For example, circumcision does not prevent urinary track infection (urinary track infections are lower in Europe where circumcision is virtually unheard of) and many studies have shown circumcision to increase the rate of HIV infection and the rate of transmitting HIV/AIDS to the female partner (UNAIDS calls using circumcision to prevent AIDS playing Russian Roulette).

Circumcision is not a folk remedy or an old wive's tale. Circumcision was started as a "cure" for masturbation. Since then it has been a procedure in search of a disease. To little attention is paid to the life long harm done to the child. For example, circumcision is now believed to be a contributing factor in male sexual dysfunction since the procedure removes highly sensitive sexual tissue and the unprotected glans becomes desensitized through a hardening of the skin in a process called keritinization.

There are many other sections of this book that are also based on errors or misinformation. See some of the other reviews.

Highly unrecommended.

Shaky science
Well, I have to give the authors credit for *some* hard work at least--there are an impressive number of studies reviewed in this book, from what I can tell. I've only had it for a few hours, though, and I've already noticed one huge and glaring factual inaccuracy: in the chapter on contraceptives, the Root-Bernsteins write, "The only exception to this is RU 486, the 'morning-after pill,' which seems to work very much like the menstrual regulators of old." How on earth can an error like that slip into a chapter *about contraception* in a so-called scientific book? RU-486 is NOT the morning-after pill, as any mildly educated person--or woman knowledgable about her contraceptive options--could tell you; it is the abortion pill, which, taken orally, causes the abortion of a fetus. The morning-after pill is a different thing entirely; it must be taken within 48 hours of unprotected intercourse, and rather than killing an already-growing fetus, it prevents the implantation of the fertilized egg in the uterine lining. I am not a scientist. I am not a health worker. I am not a science writer authoring a chapter on contraception, and yet I know this and they apparently do not. What gives?

This is really a minor detail, but its inaccuracy leads me to doubt the accuracy or thoroughness of any other "facts" cited in the rest of the book. It doesn't mean that the book is not entertaining and interesting; I would just take the Root-Bernsteins' science with a grain of salt, and read this book more as entertainment than as a learning experience.

Cool study of nexus 'tween folk remedies and science
Although not being a medical or scientific type, I found this a fascinating book. Some of the behaviors described -- drinking urine or applying it to wounds, placing maggots on festering skin to draw out the dead and dying cells -- possess a horrid fascination for the lay reader, but the authors describe quite dispassionately the possible scientifically valid reasons behind them. Very interesting stuff. ... Read more

Book Description

A timely book about history's first desperate efforts to conquer the spotted beast of smallpox.

What is it like to be caught in the terror and chaos of a smallpox epidemic when you and those you love are unprotected? What is it like to get smallpox, or to watch your children battle the disease?

The Speckled Monster tells the dramatic story-both historical and timely-of two parents who dared to fight back against the disease. After barely surviving the agony of smallpox themselves, they both flouted eighteenth-century European medical tradition by borrowing folk knowledge from African slaves and eastern women in frantic bids to protect their children. From their heroic struggles stem the modern science of immunology as well as the vaccinations that remain our only hope should the disease ever be unleashed again.

Jennifer Lee Carrell transports readers back to the early eighteenth century to tell the tales of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Dr. Zabdiel Boylston: two iconoclastic figures who helped save the cities of London and Boston from the deadliest disease mankind has known. ... Read more

Reviews (6)

timely and informative as well as a good read
Carrell does a great job of bringing us into the intimate worlds of her characters, and making us care about them, as she fleshes out her historical novel. Her descriptions of smallpox are vivid. I would have liked more connection with the Turks to better explain the utter faith in their inoculation methods; seems a big jump of faith for a lady of such cloistered aristocratic English culture. I did like the counterpoint of England and the American colonies as the story unfolds. This book will make you grateful for the 21st century!

Fascinating
This book kept me up half the night to finish it. Pretty good for a story where the eventual outcome is already well known.

Smallpox: a history of inoculation
It's early in the 18th century, and smallpox epidemics are raging. Inoculation is viewed as quackery, a folk remedy used only in Africa and the Far East, but two brave mavericks, one in London and one in Boston, defy the elitist views of physicians of the era and commit themselves to the cause of inoculation as a defense against the scourge.

history comes alive
An excellent book that reads like a novel but is the result of detailed research..as the chapter notes prove. More historians should write like this...

A Decent History, but...
you can get half the tale directly from the horse's mouth in Lady Mary Wortley Montagus' "Turkish Embassy Letters". She describes her own disfigurement by the disease, her son's vaccination, and the practice of the Turkish practitioners (many of them women), who scraped or scratched the skin and gave people mild smallpox.

This is yet another practice that spread from the Islamic World into Western Medicine. While modern medicine tends to trace its decent to Greek Medicine, it easily owes as much to the Islamic religious schools that taught medicine. Avicenna, born Ibn Sina, wrote THE major medical text of medieval Europe, which was translated into Latin by Europeans trained at Islamic Schools in Spain. For that matter, records of Greek medicine were frequently destroyed by early Christian fanatics, and may not have survived at all if not for the Arab victory at Constantinople. The slaves almost certainly learned of variola vaccination during the spread of Islam into North Africa. It's not well accepted, but a lot of the slaves (still a minority, but sizable) who were shipped to North Africa were well-educated in Arabic, and many had Arabic blood.

There are more than enough books available in a decent library that can give this information, and all the information found in this book is readily available to anyone curious enough to look it up. ... Read more

Reviews (2)

cutting
Read this one on a full stomach. This stuff is real. This is how medicine was back during the days of our founding fathers. Truly you must admire the men who went to war to make our nation beginning, for this is what they got if they did not die in battle but were wounded.

More shocking is if you choose to read the book by this same author of the medicine of the Civil war period, you will see how little actually changed between the two wars.

Grusome Details
Man, they say this book is for 9-12 year olds, the information in this book would turn a normal 9 year old into a puking ball (if they arn't already). I'm doing a report for my U.S. History class on medicines and practices of the American Revolution, and it turned my stomach (but tought me so much). Even if you don't like history I still think you need to get this book! ... Read more

Book Description

In this book of amazing oddities, Jan Bondeson explores unexpected, gruesome, and bizarre aspects of the history of medicine. He regales us with stories of spontaneous human combustion; vicious tribes of tailed men; the Two-Headed Boy of Bengal; Mary Toft, who allegedly gave birth to seventeen rabbits; and Julia Pastrana, exhibited around the world as the Ape Woman. Bondeson combines an historian's skill in showing us our timeless fascination with the grotesque with a physician's diagnostic abilities, as he examines the evidence and provides likely explanations for these peculiar events. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

A well written interesting read!
I do not think this is the type of book you want to buy if you are looking for a book with alot of photos of "freaks". This is a book that describes amazing things that people once believed and then it gives some evidence as to whether or not it really happened. I bought a whole bunch of books related to medical curiousities and "freaks" and I find this one to be the most interesting out of all of them. It is so well written that it teaches you alot about folklore and history without boring you. In fact it is quite a page turner and I often have a hard time putting it down! I've read it over and over again.

Remarkable Medical Curiosities Brilliantly Displayed
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (and even more recently), medical and natural history museums combined elements of science and folklore with an infatuation for the bizarre and grotesque. Thus, they were often likened to the old-time "cabinet of curiosities", displays of disparate and unusual artifacts which bore no relationship to one another. A visitor to these museums often saw things which, in later years, became the staple of carnival side shows.

In "A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities", Jan Bondeson, a British physician who also holds a doctorate in experimental medicine, has written a fascinating and brilliantly executed textual analogue to the cabinet of curiousities. In successive chapters, Bondeson details, among other curiousities, the histories of spontaneous human combustion, apparent death and premature burial, maternal impressions (the belief that what a pregnant woman sees and experiences can cause corresponding alterations in the unborn fetus), and people with tails. Bondeson tells true, and not so true, stories of dwarfs and giants. He relates the story of Mary Toft, the English woman who, in 1726, was believed to have given birth to seventeen rabbits. And, of course, such a compendium of marvels would not be complete without a bearded lady--in this case, Bondeson narrates the remarkable life story of Julie Pastrana, who made appearances throughout the world in the mid-nineteenth century and whose mummified body (along with the mummified corpse of her infant child) continued to draw crowds at fairs and carnivals many years after her death.

While these topics may seem grotesque, even repulsive, Bondeson writes with deep feeling for his human subjects and a wry sense of humor for the foibles of his sometimes credulous profession. He also integrates these seemingly freakish and disparate topics into remarkably lucid and informative discussions of their place in the medical, scientific, religious, and literary discourse of their times.

A Cabinet Of Medical Curiosities
"A Cabinet Of Medical Curiosities" is an interesting book. I expected better photos, not hand drawings.

Remarkable Medical Curiosities Brilliantly Displayed
In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (and even more recently), medical and natural history museums combined elements of science and folklore with an infatuation for the bizarre and grotesque. Thus, they were often likened to the old-time "cabinet of curiosities", displays of disparate and unusual artifacts which bore no relationship to one another. A visitor to these museums often saw things which, in later years, became the staple of carnival side shows.

In "A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities", Jan Bondeson, a British physician who also holds a doctorate in experimental medicine, has written a fascinating and brilliantly executed textual analogue to the cabinet of curiousities. In successive chapters, Bondeson details, among other curiousities, the histories of spontaneous human combustion, apparent death and premature burial, maternal impressions (the belief that what a pregnant woman sees and experiences can cause corresponding alterations in the unborn fetus), and people with tails. Bondeson tells true, and not so true, stories of dwarfs and giants. He relates the story of Mary Toft, the English woman who, in 1726, was believed to have given birth to seventeen rabbits. And, of course, such a compendium of marvels would not be complete without a bearded lady--in this case, Bondeson narrates the remarkable life story of Julie Pastrana, who made appearances throughout the world in the mid-nineteenth century and whose mummified body (along with the mummified corpse of her infant child) continued to draw crowds at fairs and carnivals many years after her death.

While these topics may seem grotesque, even repulsive, Bondeson writes with deep feeling for his human subjects and a wry sense of humor for the foibles of his sometimes credulous profession. He also integrates these seemingly freakish and disparate topics into remarkably lucid and informative discussions of their place in the medical, scientific, religious, and literary discourse of their times.

A fascinating book of amazing medical oddities
This book is the one to read if you want to know more about spontaneous combustion, snakes living as parasites in the human stomach, two-headed people, tailed men, giants and dwarfs, and Julia Pastrana the Nondescript. The chapter on premature burial is particularly ghoulish and gruesome, and seems to have inspired a very good TV documentary on this subject, recently sent on the Discovery Channel. The author is obviously a medical scientist, but he has the rare talent of writing in a way that appeals to the general reader. Stylish, well written and with lots of amazing illustrations, this book is well worth its price. ... Read more

Reviews (5)

Stunning look at the human body
This book is very harsh, unpleasant, impressive. Not at all for anybody because you need tohave the guts to keep your glance at the pictures mirroring the abnormal, the illnesses, the horror of nature, the facts of the old times of surgery. As Bacon's paintings these pictures have a very sui-generis esthetics, based upon the ugly and the deformity.

My god these people are beautiful
This collection of photographs and plates are some of the most concise findings on the medical world I have ever seen. It has opened my eyes to these people and has given me something new and interesting to learn about. I really enjoy seeing how far we have come in the field of medicine but also the advancement has diminished the frequency of medical oddities that are found in this book. I really recomend this to anyone who has an interest in the medical field and all of its mishaps.

An uncommon window into the medically abnormal
This book of stunning, yet disturbing, photographs of medical anomalies spanning 100 years from the mid-19th c., may not be for everyone. It is a comprehensive visual essay into things that we find fascinating, yet repulsive. Unlike a carnival sideshow, however, the purpose of this wonderful book is not to cynically trivialize the individuals illustrated. Like the Mütter Museum, (Mütter Museum: Philadelphia College of Physicians, 19 South 22nd Street, between Chestnut and Market Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 12-4pm), Stanley Burns' book is a window into the 19th century propensity to gather esoteric information of all types, organize it and, ultimately, to exhibit it as the means to greater knowledge.

wonderful book, fantastic images
This is simply a wonderful book. Filled with old photographs depicting human oddities and early medical procedures, it presents a unique glimpse into a time not too long past. The photo from which the title is taken is a work of art unto itself, as are most of the images in this tome. I never tire of paging through this collection, seeming to find something new every time. While some images may be disturbing, the uniqueness of each and every photo makes this book a must have for devotees of human oddities, as well as aficionados of early photography.

A compendium of extraoridinary photographs!
This is by far one of the best books out there depicting photographs of human anomalies, surgical procedures and things of the like during the early 20th century. If each picture is worth a thousand words, then this book could be an encyclopedia. A must buy for every person interested in human abnormalities. Not for the easily squeemish! ... Read more