Evaluating Folk Medicine

Few subjects fascinate the imagination as does shamanism-exotic, barbaric, tinged with the suggestion of magic that works. And few subjects are debated as emotionally as the question of whether folk medicines prescribed to treat the litany of ailments from hemorrhoids to stomach aches really work or are simply the superstitious garble of ignorant people. In one way or another, the books selected for review here reflect this fascination and this debate. All these books add to general knowledge of folk healing practices, and those by Joseph Bastien, Kaja Finkler, and Michael Taussig do substantially more in challenging the traditional processing and packaging of information about healers and herbs. Bastien writes as an advocate of the integration of folk and modern medicine in the Andes and documents how this integration is being achieved

Action (physics) · Folk medicine · Medicinal herbs · Traditional medicine · Complementary and Alternative Medicine Studies · Medicine