TY  - GEN
N2  - Health in early America was generally good. The food was plentiful, the air and water were clean, and people tended to enjoy strong constitutions as a result of this environment. Practitioners of traditional forms of health care enjoyed high social status, and the cures they offered-from purging to mere palliatives-carried a powerful authority. Consequently, most American doctors felt little need to keep up with Europe's medical advances relying heavily on their traditional depletion methods. However, in the years following the American Revolution as poverty increased and America's water and air became more polluted, people grew sicker. Traditional medicine became increasingly ineffective. Instead, Americans sought out both older and newer forms of alternative medicine and people who embraced these methods: midwives, folk healers, Native American shamans, African obeahs and the new botanical and water cure advocates.In this overview of health and healing in early America, Elaine G. Breslaw describes the evolution of public health crises and solutions. Breslaw examines "ethnic borrowings" (of both disease and treatment) of early American medicine and the tension between trained doctors and the lay public. While orthodox medicine never fully lost its authority, Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic argues that their ascendance over other healers didn't begin until the early twentieth century, as germ theory finally migrated from Europe to the United States and American medical education achieved professional standing.
DO  - 10.18574/nyu/9780814787175.001.0001
DO  - doi
AB  - Health in early America was generally good. The food was plentiful, the air and water were clean, and people tended to enjoy strong constitutions as a result of this environment. Practitioners of traditional forms of health care enjoyed high social status, and the cures they offered-from purging to mere palliatives-carried a powerful authority. Consequently, most American doctors felt little need to keep up with Europe's medical advances relying heavily on their traditional depletion methods. However, in the years following the American Revolution as poverty increased and America's water and air became more polluted, people grew sicker. Traditional medicine became increasingly ineffective. Instead, Americans sought out both older and newer forms of alternative medicine and people who embraced these methods: midwives, folk healers, Native American shamans, African obeahs and the new botanical and water cure advocates.In this overview of health and healing in early America, Elaine G. Breslaw describes the evolution of public health crises and solutions. Breslaw examines "ethnic borrowings" (of both disease and treatment) of early American medicine and the tension between trained doctors and the lay public. While orthodox medicine never fully lost its authority, Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic argues that their ascendance over other healers didn't begin until the early twentieth century, as germ theory finally migrated from Europe to the United States and American medical education achieved professional standing.
T1  - Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic :Health Care in Early America /
AU  - Breslaw, Elaine G., 
JF  - New York University Press Backlist eBook-Package 2000-2013
CN  - R152
CN  - R152
LA  - eng
LA  - In English.
ID  - 1479746
KW  - HISTORY / General
KW  - Medical care
KW  - Medical care
KW  - Medicine
KW  - Medicine
KW  - Physicians
KW  - Physicians
KW  - Public health
KW  - Public health
SN  - 9780814739389
TI  - Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic :Health Care in Early America /
LK  - https://univsouthin.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780814739389
UR  - https://univsouthin.idm.oclc.org/login?url=https://www.degruyter.com/isbn/9780814739389
ER  -