San Antonio College Library

"From reflexology and rolfing to shiatsu and dream work, we are confronted today by a welter of alternative medical therapies. But as James Whorton shows in Nature Cures, the recent explosion in alternative medicine actually reflects two centuries of competition and conflict between mainstream medicine and numerous unorthodox systems." "This is a history of alternative medicine in America, examining the major systems that have emerged from 1800 to...

In this book, Lewis chronicles horrifying cases of misdiagnosis and malpractice, from the surgeons who compete to break the record of "Fastest Cesarean Section," endangering the lives of mothers and babies, to the doctor who actually causes kidney failure in an otherwise healthy patient. But his objective is not to point an accusatory finger or to dismiss the undeniably productive aspects of traditional Western medicine. Inspired by his Cherokee grandmother's...

"In Healing Traditions, Bobbie Blair O'Connor explores the interaction between conventional medicine and what she calls "vernacular" health systems. She examines the relationship of health systems(including Western medicine) to their broader cultural frameworks, and probes the ways in which beliefs and values affect both patients' approaches to health care and health care professionals' approaches to patients. Two contrasting studies - one conduced...

Profiles New York senator and homeopathic physician Royal Samuel Copeland and his role in promoting homeopathic remedies in medical care and provides a study of homeopathy and its place in the history and practice of American medicine.