Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic : Health Care in Early America / Elaine G. Breslaw.
2012
R152 .B725 2012
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Details
Title
Lotions, Potions, Pills, and Magic : Health Care in Early America / Elaine G. Breslaw.
Author
Breslaw, Elaine G., author.
ISBN
9780814739389
Published
New York, NY : : New York University Press, [2012]
Copyright
©2012
Language
English
Language Note
In English.
Description
1 online resource
Other Standard Identifiers
10.18574/nyu/9780814787175.001.0001 doi
Call Number
R152 .B725 2012
Dewey Decimal Classification
362.10973
Summary
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.
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Access limited to authorized users.
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Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
Digital File Characteristics
text file PDF
Source of Description
Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 18. Sep 2023)
Available in Other Form
print 9780814787175
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Table of Contents
Frontmatter
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Columbian Exchange
2. Epidemics
3. Tools of the Trade
4. Abundance
5. Wartime
6. New Nation
7. Giving Birth
8. The Face of Madness
9. Democratic Medicine
10. Public Health
Conclusion
Epilogue
Abbreviations
Bibliographic Essay
Index
About the Author
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Columbian Exchange
2. Epidemics
3. Tools of the Trade
4. Abundance
5. Wartime
6. New Nation
7. Giving Birth
8. The Face of Madness
9. Democratic Medicine
10. Public Health
Conclusion
Epilogue
Abbreviations
Bibliographic Essay
Index
About the Author