World medicine : plants, patients and people
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
World medicine : plants, patients and people
Blackwell, 1992
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 412-417) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
A book which had originally been conceived as a treatise on medical plants has been turned by its own subject into a statement for the reconciliation and integration of a multitude of healing crafts, skills and sciences. The authors follow the interconnecting development of both Western and non-Western medicine, through the myriad of healing plants which form the basis of both approaches to the prevention and cure of illness. David Bellamy and Andrea Pfister approach the world of medicine with the combined approach of a botanist and an ecologist. The botanist's perspective, looking at the similarities induced by a common botanical patrimony is rare. The ecologist's approach, looking at the healing crafts's suitability in reference to mankind's needs is rarer still. Recognizing the enormous contribution of established medical practices to human development, David Bellamy and Andrea Pfister raise the question of whether Western medicine in its present form serves mankind's current needs adequately. The authors suggest that the future will lie in the exploration and employment of effective healing methods from other parts of the world.
A synthesis of the world's multitude of healing crafts, skills and sciences may be the only hope of sustaining and improving medical care for everyone. "World Medicine" includes a wide ranging and systematic survey of plant families employed in the West for medicinal purposes, with references to their uses in India and China.
Table of Contents
- Part 1 Dawn: from self heal to family doctor. Part 2 Foundations: onions, pyramids and clay tablets
- rules of life and health
- classical medicine
- Indian routes
- Roman connections. Part 3 Development: spices of life
- God or mandrake
- light in the East
- the medical school of Salerno
- Middle Age spread
- new medicines for old
- simple English
- trading on ill health
- ginseng and the Royal Society connection
- virtues old and new
- botanical medicine
- urban sprawl
- survival and the unfit
- iatrogenics and geriatrics. Part 3 How the other half lives: China syndrome
- serendipity. Part 4 Post script: Hello! homo sapiens, this is your largest endocrine gland calling. Part 5 The Green family doctor: a synopsis of families of plants which have been and still are used in healing.
by "Nielsen BookData"