Book Description

This book examines alternative healing practices in American popular culture. From traditional folk approaches to more recent developments, it discusses the rise and fall of more than 100 popular approaches to addressing both physical ailments and mental health needs. Offering insightful accounts of everything from aging prevention to voodoo & Santería, Alternative Healing in American History: An Encyclopedia from Acupuncture to Yoga situates each popular approach in the history and culture of health and wellness in America. Moreover, the book shows that "orthodox" medicine and unconventional approaches may have more in common than many people think, because both are subject to the changing nature of the medical understanding and the strength of their appeal to consumers. While the main focus is on remedies lying outside the medical mainstream, the book also highlights how many widely accepted therapeutic treatments of the past—for example, "the water cure" (hydrotherapy) or lobotomy (psychosurgery)—fell out of favor and were quickly forgotten. Besides examining popular healing techniques, the book also explores the changing nature of the medical marketplace and how once-standard treatments (e.g., leeching, psychoanalysis) have had their ups and downs. The book comprises five chronological sections covering time periods from pre-1900 to the present.