Medicine, rationality, and experience
Subtitle: an anthropological perspective
By: Byron J. Good.
Series: The Lewis Henry Morgan lectures ;; 1990
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 1994
Place of publication: Cambridge; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 242
Subjects: Medical anthropology.; Social medicine.
Description: Biomedicine is often thought to provide a universal, scientific account of the human body and illness. In this view, non-Western and folk medical systems are regarded as systems of "belief" and subtly discounted. This is an impoverished perspective for understanding illness and healing across cultures, one that neglects many facets of Western medical practice and obscures its kinship with healing in other traditions. Drawing on his research in several American and Middle Eastern medical settings, Professor Good develops a critical, anthropological account of medical knowledge and practice. He shows how physicians and healers enter and inhabit distinctive worlds of meaning and experience. He explores how stories or illness narratives are joined with bodily experience in shaping and responding to human suffering. And he argues that moral and aesthetic considerations are present in routine medical practice as in other forms of healing.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 208-233) and indexes.