Healing by Hand

Anthropologists have routinely overlooked the practice of body therapists, one of the primary providers of "traditional" medicine. Healing by Hand presents the first cross-cultural primer on manual medicine studies. As a particular modality of healing, manual medicine has reached a high level of popularity and importance as its practitioners investigate the body's important capacities for self-healing. The authors describe how manual medicine takes numerous forms across the world's communities, in urban and rural, as well as Western and non-Western, contexts, in individual and community lives. Though frequently overshadowed and challenged by allopathic practitioners, body workers continue to help the sick and injured reach their health goals. In this book, the individual ethnographic analyses of manual medicine describe beliefs and practices about healing, physical and psychological states, and the relation between culture and health. Given the therapeutic training of many of the authors, Healing by Hand should be a fascinating resource for manual practitioners of western medicine, including massage therapists, physical therapists, chiropractors, and osteopaths, as well as those with traditional training. It is especially recommended for various courses such as Medical Anthropology, Health and Human Culture, Technology and the Developing World, Sociology of Health, International Health, and Health Care Systems.