Good book

[Guest guest]

Hello all,

 

I'm enjoying (if that can be the right word) a fascinating book by Barbara

Ehrenreich and Deirdre English called " For Her Own Good: Two Centuries of the

Experts' Advice to Women " (ISBN 1-4000-7800-8, $14US paperback - I got mine

from the public library). This book was originally released in 1978, but a

revised version has been reissued in 2005.

 

The book is listed as " women's studies " , and yet in the first part of the book

(which I've found most fascinating), it should be listed as " people's

studies " , since the history of allopathic medicine vs. people's medicines

doesn't just have women as its victims - and Ehrenreich doesn't put her

history across that way.

 

A " favorite " quote of mine from the book is from J.E. Stubbs, M.D., writing in

an 1899 issue of the " Journal of the American Medical Association " , when he

warned his fellow allopaths: " I warn all of you not to uncover the mistakes of

a fellow practitioner, because if you do, it will come back like a boomerang,

and it will sting to the bitter end... We do wrong when we do not try to cover

up the mistakes of our brethren. There are many cases that require extreme

surgical dexterity and a large amount of knowledge in order to operate

successfully; yet those who are operating all the time make mistakes. We have

to do a great many things empirically, and if we tell people.. this or that

physician has made a great blunder, it hurts him; it hurts the community,

because the opinion of the physician in society is considered authority, and

particularly in the community in which he lives, among his associates and

friends. They consult him as they do no other man; they consult him more

confidently and give up their secrets to him more unreservedly than they do

their priest or minister. "

 

Here are other chapters I found most interesting:

 

PART ONE, CHAPTER ONE: In the Ruins of Patriarchy:

The Woman Question • The New Masculinism • Feminist and Domestic Solutions •

Science and the Triumph of Domesticity

[reviews the changes in society that were the foundation to allopathic (and

other groups) finally being able to monopolize various parts of peoples'

lives, including health]

 

PART TWO: THE RISE OF THE EXPERTS

CHAPTER TWO Witches, Healers, and Gentleman Doctors

The Witch Hunts • The Conflict over Healing Comes to America • Healing as a

Commodity • The Popular Health Movement • Lady Doctors Join the Competition

 

CHAPTER THREE Science and the Ascent of the Experts

The Moral Salvation of Medicine • The Laboratory Mystique • Medicine and the

Big Money • Exorcising the Midwives

 

There is more to the book, but related more to women's place in society (and

less to health, per se). I encourage those interested to check out the book

for those more specifically health-related chapters, if not for the others!

 

Jent

 

" The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of

private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State

itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism - ownership of government by an

individual, by a group or by any controlling private power. " -Franklin Delano

Roosevelt