Black Folk Medicine

Folk medicine is an important informal and traditional system of social health care support that is still wisely used in many nations including rural regions of the southern United States. This volume provides new insight into the various conditions and structures that help to account for the development and persistence of folk medicine in societies. The authors focus on older, primarily female, black users of folk medicine; the problem of trust in folk and modern doctor-patient relationships; the need for communication and information exchange between folk and modern medical doctors; and a variety of social, cultural, and psychological factors related to drug misuse among the poor, the elderly, rural and uneducated consumers of health services.

Folk medicine is an important informal and traditional system of social health care support that is still wisely used in many nations including rural regions of the southern United States. This volume provides new insight into the various conditions and structures that help to account for the development and persistence of folk medicine in societies. The authors focus on older, primarily female, black users of folk medicine; the problem of trust in folk and modern doctor-patient relationships; the need for communication and information exchange between folk and modern medical doctors; and a variety of social, cultural, and psychological factors related to drug misuse among the poor, the elderly, rural and uneducated consumers of health services.

The second volume of Jina·ratna's thirteenth-century The Epitome of Queen Lilávati completes his story. Embodied souls undergo all too human adventures in a succession of lives, as they advance to final release. The primary purpose of Jain narrative literature was to edify lay people through amusement; consequently the stories are racy, and in some cases the moralizing element is rather tenuous. Co-published by New York University Press and the JJC Foundation For more on this title and other titles in the Clay Sanskrit series, please visit http://www.claysanskritlibrary.org

A cultural look at the traditional health beliefs and practices of African Americans. Representing more than twenty years of anthropological research, Walkin' over Medicine, originally published by Westview Press in 1993, presents the results of Loudell F. Snow's community-based studies in Arizona and Michigan, work in two urban prenatal clinics, conversations and correspondence with traditional healers, and experience as a behavioral scientist in a pediatrics clinic. Snow also visited numerous pharmacies, grocery stores, and specialty shops in several major cities, accompanied families to church services, and attended weddings, baptisms, graduations, and funerals.

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.

African-American Slave Medicine offers a critical examination of how African-American slaves medical needs were addressed during the years before and surrounding the Civil War. Drawing upon ex-slave interviews conducted during the 1930s and 1940s bythe Works Project Administration (WPA), Dr. Herbert C. Covey inventories many of the herbal, plant, and non-plant remedies used by African-American folk practitioners during slavery. He demonstrates how active the slaves were in their own medical care and the important role faith played in the healing process. This book links each referenced plant or herb to modern scientific evidence to determine its actual worth and effects on the patients. Through his study, Dr. Covey unravels many of the complex social relationships found between the African-American slaves, Whites, folk practitioners, and patients. African-American Slave Medicine is a compelling and captivating read that will appeal to scholars of African-American history and those interestedin folk medicine.

Spells are conjured, herbs collected, and potions concocted in this fascinating history of the practices and beliefs of Norway's folk healers at home and in the New Land.