Magic or medicine? : an investigation of healing & [and] healers

Modern Medicine Is One Of The Most Successful Branches Of Science, With A Distinguished History Of Conquering Many Of The Twentieth Century's Deadliest Diseases. Yet Today People Are Turning In Record Numbers To Alternative Therapies That Have Little Or No Scientific Basis. Herbalists, Homeopaths, Crystal Therapists, Chiropractors, Acupuncturists, And Countless Other Unconventional Practitioners Are Enjoying Thriving Businesses. What Accounts For This Flight From Reason In The Face Of Hard Evidence That Medical Doctors Do A Better Job Of Treating Disease And Alleviating Suffering Than Their Alternative Counterparts? In Magic Or Medicine? Dr. Robert Buckman And Karl Sabbagh Offer A Response To This Question By Critically Evaluating Both Alternative And Conventional Medical Approaches To Patient Care. Drawing On Some Of The Earliest Written Medical Sources As Well As Their Own Investigations Into Current Alternative Therapies, The Authors Argue That Healing Has Always Been Partly The Science Of Clinical Treatment (medicine) And Partly An Art (magic). Medicine May Make The Patient Get Well, But Often It Is Magic That Makes The Patient Feel Well. With All The Pressures Under Which They Work, Modern Medical Doctors Often Neglect The Magic In Their Dealings With Patients. Alternative Therapists, However, Frequently Offer Nothing But Magic. Buckman And Sabbagh Look Closely At The Claims Made For Both Medical Science And Alternative Treatments And Discover A Gap Between The Promises And The Reality Of Each Approach. Magic Or Medicine? Is A Fascinating Exploration Of Healing In The Late Twentieth Century And Vital Reading For Anyone Concerned About The Effective Delivery Of Health Care. 1. Healing And Healers -- 2. The Origins Of Healing -- 3. Encounters Of A Healing Kind -- 4. A Taxonomy Of Healing -- 5. Philosophical Attractions -- 6. Practical Plusses And Minuses -- 7. Alternative Explanations Of The Inexplicable -- 8. Getting Better Or Feeling Better -- 9. Synthesis: Magic And Medicine. Robert Buckman & Karl Sabbagh. Originally Published: Toronto, Ont. : Key Porter Books, 1993. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.

henry Beston Is Best Known For The Outermost House, His Record Of A Year Spent On Cape Cod's Outer Beach. But Here In Herbs And The Earth He Moves Inland And Northward, To His Beloved Homestead In Nobleboro, Maine, To Another Adventure And A Subject Matter Close To The Earth And Dear To His Heart. More Than A Gardening Book, This Is A Singular Example Of A Man Thinking About What He Grows, And Into These Conjectures Weaving The Fabric Of The Past. Here Are The Various Herbs And Their Horticultural Characteristics; But Here, As Well, Are Their Antecedents, Their Ancient Lore, And Their Curious Habits. The Mandrake And Wormwood Of The Bible, The Hyssop And Saffron From The Song Of Songs, The Rue, Marjoram, And Savory Of Shakespeare, Are All Present. So, Too, Are The Herbs Of Ancient Greece And Rome, The Plants Of The Medieval Medicinal Garden And The Crusades. In Touch With The Earth's Cycles, Beston Takes Us On A Tour Through The Seasons With These Friends, A Tour Not Soon Forgotten, With A Voice As Sweet As Song. Decorated With John Howard Benson's Woodcuts And Drawings, And Introduced By Roger Swain, This Edition Does Justice To One Of This Country's Great Writers And Naturalists.

publishers Weekly

beston (1888-1968), A New England Naturalist And Children's Book Author Whose ``chosen Home'' From 1944 On Was A Farm In Maine, Here Writes With An Almost Proustian Dedication About Herbs As Human ``familiars'' Of Ancient Lineage. ``the Green Life Of Earth Is A Deeper Life Than We Know,'' He Avows, And Walks A Leisurely Path Through Species Including Sage, Marjoram, Basil And Other Mainstays. Always Exercising A ``gardener's Musing Mind,'' The Author Gently But Firmly Reproaches ``the Age In Which We Live'' For Having ``lost The Earth,'' And Exchanged This For A ``vulgar Curse Of Gigantism,'' With Gardens ``fallen Into So Impersonal A Rut.'' Writing As An Appreciator Of ``subtleties Of Light'' And The Revelations Of ``a Simple Leaf,'' Beston Pens A Hymn In Prose, Out Of Print For A Dozen Years, Of Unusual Depth And Eloquence. Bomc Alternate. (june)

"Charming, delightful, and a great companion for gardeners and naturalists alike."— Booklist Lavender, basil, hyssop, balm, sage, rue — the thinking gardener's guide to herbs. Writer/naturalist Henry Beston, a founding father of the environmental movement, believed that a strong connection to nature is essential. "It is only when we are aware of the earth and of the earth as poetry that we truly live," Beston says in his now-classic Herbs and the Earth . In this book, Beston shares one of those connections as seen through the oldest group of plants known to gardeners. "A garden of herbs," he writes, "is a garden of things loved for themselves in their wholeness and integrity. It is not a garden of flowers, but a garden of plants which are sometimes very lovely flowers and are always more than flowers." Whether you are already a committed herbalist or just dreaming of planting your first small garden, this book is a powerfully rich source of inspiration and information. As Roger B. Swain observes in his moving introduction, Herbs and the Earth has an intensity that evokes the herbs themselves, as if, pressed between the pages, their aroma has seeped into the pages.

Lavender, basil, hyssop, balm, sage, rue — the thinking gardener’s guide to herbs. Writer/naturalist Henry Beston, a founding father of the environmental movement, believed that a strong connection to nature is essential. “It is only when we are aware of the earth and of the earth as poetry that we truly live,” Beston says in his now-classic Herbs and the Earth. In this book, Beston shares one of those connections as seen through the oldest group of plants known to gardeners.
“A garden of herbs,” he writes, “is a garden of things loved for themselves in their wholeness and integrity. It is not a garden of flowers, but a garden of plants which are sometimes very lovely flowers and are always more than flowers.” Whether you are already a committed herbalist or just dreaming of planting your first small garden, this book is a powerfully rich source of inspiration and information. As Roger B. Swain observes in his moving introduction, Herbs and the Earth has an intensity that evokes the herbs themselves, as if, pressed between the pages, their aroma has seeped into the pages.

This is not strictly a gardening book (although there is plenty for the gardener to learn in it), but the reflections of a man thinking not only about what he grows but how it grows, its roots in religion, the Bible, history and medicine. Beston described his efforts as "part garden book, part musing study of our relation to nature through the oldest group of plants known to gardeners." The book was written at the Maine homestead, Chimney Farm. Illustrated with the woodcuts of American stone cutter/letter designer/craftsman John Howard Benson