Happy March everyone. Let’s check out a selection of titles that we acquired in February. Take a look!
Barefoot doctors and western medicine in China / Xiaoping Fang. Rochester, NY : University of Rochester Press, 2012.
From the University of Rochester Press:
In 1968, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Communist Party endorsed a radical new system of health-care delivery for the rural masses. Soon every village had at least one barefoot doctor to provide basic medical care, creating a national network of health-care services for the very first time. The barefoot doctors were portrayed nationally and internationally as revolutionary heroes, wading undaunted through rice paddies to bring effective, low-cost care to poor peasants. This book is the first comprehensive study to look beyond the nostalgia dominating present scholarship on public health in China and offer a powerful and carefully contextualized critique of the prevailing views on the role of barefoot doctors, their legacy, and their impact.
Lotions, potions, pills, and magic : health care in early America / Elaine G. Breslaw. New York : New York University Press, 2012.
Historian Elaine Breslaw explores the health crises of early American settlements and identifies the array of Western medicine and indigenous healing techniques practiced side-by-side, together, or in conflict in the period following the American Revolution.
Conserver la santé ou la rétablir : le rôle de l’environnement dans la médecine antique et médiévale : actes du colloque international, Saint-Étienne, 23-24 octobre 2008 / textes réunis et présenté par Nicoletta Palmieri. Saint Étienne : Publications de l’Université de Saint Étienne, 2012.
This volume of proceedings from an international colloquium contains work by scholars Jacques Jouanna, Heinrich von Staden, and Klaus-Dietrich Fischer among many others.
Chinese traditional healing : the Berlin collections of manuscript volumes from the 16th through the early 20th century / by Paul U. Unschuld and Zheng Jinsheng. Leiden ; Boston: Brill, 2012.
An impressive three volume set consisting of one volume of essays and two volumes containing a survey of over 800 Chinese medical manuscripts produced for private use from the 16th to the 20th centuries.
Urban planning and public health in Africa : historical, theoretical and practical dimensions of a continent’s water and sanitation problematic / Ambe J. Njoh. Farnham, England ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, 2012.
The author investigates hygiene and sanitation policies in Africa, and the resulting state of public health, in the light of European colonial urban planning.
Have you had a chance to read any of these yet? What did you think?