On knowing and not knowing in the anthropology of medicine /

Honoring Murray Last (emer., Univ. College London) by applying his epistemological skepticism makes great good sense. His essay on the uneven, unsystematic nature of medical knowledge in northern Nigeria is as relevant now as it was when published in 1981, a time when systems and explanatory models bridged the gaps among informants, anthropologists, and medical personnel. Editor Littlewood (Univ. College London) has gathered an impressive group of Last's longtime colleagues and students to consider what can and cannot be known about sickness and social suffering in a range of locales (primarily African), based on fieldwork conducted over the last 25 years. There are 12 essays. The freshest essays are pinned to rich fieldwork data and texts; in comparison, the one that revisits Benjamin Rush and Radcliffe Brown (chapter 3) falls flat and feels stale. Several of the authors do not cite Last or engage directly with his work. This kind of sidestepping is a missed opportunity to clarify how epistemological skepticism organizes history and hindsight, secrecy and social etiquette, and the changing politics of vulnerability. Murray Last "showed," but he also confronted and clarified. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. B. Bianco independent scholar