Plants, Health and Healing (eBook, ePUB)

On the Interface of Ethnobotany and Medical Anthropology
Redaktion: Hsu, Elisabeth; Harris, Stephen

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

Plants have cultural histories, as their applications change over time and with place. Some plant species have affected human cultures in profound ways, such as the stimulants tea and coffee from the Old World, or coca and quinine from South America. Even though medicinal plants have always attracted considerable attention, there is surprisingly little research on the interface of ethnobotany and medical anthropology. This volume, which brings together (ethno-)botanists, medical anthropologists and a clinician, makes an important contribution towards filling this gap. It emphasises that plant knowledge arises situationally as an intrinsic part of social relationships, that herbs need to be enticed if not seduced by the healers who work with them, that herbal remedies are cultural artefacts, and that bioprospecting and medicinal plant discovery can be viewed as the epitome of a long history of borrowing, stealing and exchanging plants.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Berghahn Books
• Seitenzahl: 328
• Erscheinungstermin: 15. März 2012
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9781845458218
• Artikelnr.: 39602649

Autorenporträt

Elisabeth Hsu is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Oxford, where she has convened its master's courses in medical anthropology since 2001. Based on her earlier studies in biology (botany), linguistics and sinology, she has published widely on the history and anthropology of Chinese medicine.

Inhaltsangabe

List of Illustrations
List of Tables
List of Contributors
Introduction
Elisabeth Hsu
History
Editorial introduction
Stephen Harris
Chapter 1. Non-native plants and their medicinal uses
Stephen Harris
Chapter 2. Qinghao .. (Herba Artemisiae annuae) in the Chinese materia
medica
Elisabeth Hsu (in consultation with Frederic Obringer)
Anthropology
Editorial introduction
Stephen Harris
Chapter 3. Shamanic plants and gender in the Peruvian Upper Amazon
Francoise Barbira Freedman
Chapter 4. Persons, plants and relations: treating childhood illness in a
western Kenyan village
P. Wenzel Geissler and Ruth J. Prince
Plant Portraits
Editorial introduction
Stephen Harris
Chapter 5. East goes West. Ginkgo biloba and dementia
Sir John Grimley Evans
Chapter 6. Medicinal, stimulant and ritual plant use: an ethnobotany of
caffeine-containing plants
Caroline S. Weckerle, Verena Timbul and Philip Blumenshine
Index