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NATURE CURES

Name: NATURE CURES
Author: James C. Whorton
ISBN: 0-19-514071-0

THE HISTORY OF ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IN AMERICA

by James C. Whorton ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2002

While health-care professionals are the primary audience, there’s much here to interest and perhaps amaze anyone who has...

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A lively, entertaining, and well-documented introduction to the history of unconventional medicine in the US over the past two centuries.

Whorton, who teaches a consciousness-raising course on alternative approaches to healing at the Univ. of Washington School of Medicine, neither condemns nor recommends these practices but seeks a further entente between orthodox and alternative medicine through increasing each group’s understanding of the other. Alternative medicine has had a long and colorful history in the US, and Whorton’s fair-minded account is filled with fascinating details of its conflicts with mainstream medicine. He explores the roots, foreign and domestic, of various alternative systems, their shared values, their common perceptions of orthodox medicine, and the reasons behind mainstream medicine’s efforts to suppress their activities. While some nonstandard approaches to healing are widely familiar today—chiropractic, acupuncture, and Christian Science, for example—Whorton brings to light some long-forgotten ones. Who but a medical historian recalls Thomsonianism, developed by a New Hampshire farmer whose regimen relied on botanicals and the inducement of vomiting and sweating? Or hydropathy, which employed copious amounts of water both inside and out? Whorton gives these and other therapies a historic context, relating them to the political thought and social movements of their times. Especially interesting is the story of how osteopathy, once scorned by orthodox medicine, has gradually been absorbed by it. In his conclusion, Whorton notes that the redesignation of some unconventional approaches as “complementary medicine” and the emergence of “integrative medicine” indicate a growing recognition that alternative approaches of various types may indeed have something to offer in balancing the treatments offered by conventional medicine.

While health-care professionals are the primary audience, there’s much here to interest and perhaps amaze anyone who has ever been a patient.

Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2002

ISBN: 0-19-514071-0

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Oxford Univ.

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2002

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

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NUTCRACKER

by E.T.A. Hoffmann ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 28, 1996

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This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

Categories:

GENERAL NONFICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER AND THE MOUSE KING
by E.T.A. Hoffmann ; adapted by Natalie Andrewson ; illustrated by Natalie Andrewson

- BOOK REVIEW
THE NUTCRACKER
by E.T.A. Hoffmann & illustrated by Julie Paschkis

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TO THE ONE I LOVE THE BEST

EPISODES FROM THE LIFE OF LADY MENDL (ELSIE DE WOLFE)

by Ludwig Bemelmans ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 23, 1955

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An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.