Ted J. Kaptchuk

From the rituals of a Navaho healing cermony to those at a modern Western hospital, from the anicent Chinese art of acupuncture to the traditions of Ayurvedic as it is practiced in India today, Kaptchuk and Croucher take us on a fascinating journey around the globe and through the ages. For here is a comprehensive survey that examines the quality and usuable contributions of medicine developed in many cultures over the last 2,500 years-from herbalism to surgery-and shows how 20th century Western scientific medicine can be enhanced by other healing systems.

The authors ask such fundamental questions as:
What is illness?
What effect does the mind have on the body?
Where do the various medical systems come from?
How do they work?
Can these systems be combined and can they cooperate?

The Healing Arts also answers such questions as:
How do shamans and witch doctors heal?
Chiropractors?
Osteopaths?
Homeopaths?
Herbalists?
Acupuncturists?
Surgeons?
Religioius heaers?
Medical doctors?
Psychologists?
Navaho chanters?

A marvelous introduction to all medical systems ancient and modern, scientific and complementary, The Healing Arts is the best guide available for anyone interested in the developing state of medicine and health and in the ongoing search for cure.

Ted Kaptchuk graduated from Columbia Uinversity and received his Doctorate in Oriental Medicine from Macau Institute of Chinese Medicine. He is currently the Clinical Director of the Pain and Stress Relief Clinic at Boston's Lemuel Shatuck Hospital. He has studied medical history and medical anthropology extensively at Harvard. Michael Croucher is a television producer and director with the BBC in London. He is currently working on a news series on mental health.

Contents

Preface
Introduction
The web that has no weaver
The mystery of illness
Hands on
Nature's green pharmacy
Enter magic bullets
The mind wants back in
The return of ritual
The open clinic
The lost art of moving
The lost art of eating
Epilogue
Further reading (bibliography)
Index… (mere)

its a competent summary introduction with decent coverage

but kaptchuk falls short in terms of his lazy attempts at "translation", his ideological dualism, and his misunderstanding of chinese intellectual history; taken together these errors border on factual misrepresentation and orientalism

his attempts to render chinese medical notions more "comprehensible" (tho imo its debatable whether such a translation is rly necessary) are uncreative and reductive. he fails to take the channel theory seriously for what it is, instead employing an inconsistent instrumentalism to get away w his positivist worldview intact and unchallenged

he insists on a separation bw religious belief and scientific knowledge, when such a separation has never held in chinese medicine or chinese culture broadly

and he constantly confuses confucian values for broadly/generally chinese values. confucianism has ofc been the hegemonic philosophy in china for 2 millenia, but this does not excuse such an error, especially when non-confucian taoists were instrumental pioneers in developing many of the core theoretical components of chinese medicine

im honestly not sure who this book is intended for… (mere)