THE POLITICS OF HEALING Histories of Alternative Medicine in Twentieth- Century North America docx

[...]... of the recent coming of age of alternative medicine in the United States was the establishment of the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) within the National Institutes of Health The two legislators with the greatest responsibility for the growth of this office, and for the overall nurturing of alternative medicine within the vast medicalgovernmental complex, have been Senators Tom Harkin and Orrin... recommitment to the patients’ health and to the nobility of the healing enterprise.”14 There surely are countless different paths into the politics of alternative medicine other than through the specific ideas of Tom Harkin or Orrin Hatch, Phyllis Schlafly or Michael Lerner Continued exploration of the strong feminist strains within the historical tradition of North American alternative medicine would,... within general medicine, rejecting many of Hahnemann’s teachings as outdated.8 However, a small minority of traditionalists (called Hahnemannians) were determined to maintain homeopathic distinctiveness according to three cardinal principles: prescription of the medicine according to the doctrine of similars, the minimum dose, and the single remedy.9 In 1921, with homeopathic institutions in decline,... which the debate took place: the tension that existed at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries between the freedom of the individual and the limits of the power of the state Various political groups linked their antagonism to vaccination to a more general opposition to the state’s intrusion into the private lives of its citizens, only part of which was opposition to intrusion... employed in reaching the goal of all medicine, the production of immunity.41 According to this view, the writings of Samuel Hanhemann on the issue of vital force and its importance in healing processes could be translated scientifically into the languages of immunology and antitoxins.42 This homeopathic approach did not remain solely in the theoretical realm In the first decades of the twentieth century, ... legislation… The battle of the people against wholesale poisoning of their blood by serums to-day is merely a repetition of the battle against compulsory inoculation of small-pox in the eighteenth century; and the intolerant attitude of the so-called regular doctors and their insistent demand for legal compulsion is the reappearance in the twentieth century of exactly the same spirit that dominated the so-called... bloodletting in the past—became the new symbol of struggle against allopathy and the expanding influence of “organized” medicine Yet the dilemma over definition of the identity of homeopathy was not limited only to professional identity The vaccination question was broader, including fundamental questions of body politics, since obligatory vaccination undercut the autonomy held by individuals over their... of the “insanity” of established medicine. 35 The lancet the very symbol of the bloodletting doctor—became also the symbol of the vaccinating doctor, only this time the physician was penetrating the body of healthy individuals, under the power of the law III As the nineteenth century came to an end, the vaccination issue became more and more controversial within homeopathic circles A group of homeopaths,... criticism against the growing introduction of orthodox medicine and practices into the health domain The controversy over vaccinations—beyond being a medical question about whether immunization was in keeping with homeopathic principles—was a bitter controversy over the limitations of the state and personal liberty At the turn of the century, vaccinations became a crucial part of the emerging public... healing to the general politics of democracy.15 The Politics of Healing contains five parts The first, “Precursors: The Years in the Wilderness,” explores, for the most part, the decades before World War II These were the years when established medicine was supposedly taking all before it, the years when the tremendous ferment of the nineteenth -century alternative medicine world sickened and died Yet . x0 y0 w0 h0" alt="" THE POLITICS OF HEALING THE POLITICS OF HEALING Histories of Alternative Medicine in Twentieth- Century North America Robert D.Johnston Editor Routledge New. permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging -in- Publication Data The politics of healing: histories of alternative medicine in twentieth-century