Review by Choice Review
Have you ever wondered how to treat rheumatism (grease from a buzzard, goat, or black dog) or how to clear wax from ears (hedgehog fat, eel oil, and skunk oil)? If so, this is the reference source for you. Providing each alphabetically arranged entry with a full bibliography helps make Hatfield's encyclopedia easy to use and positions it as a highly credible resource. Entries are based on the folk medicine of Britain, Ireland, and North America. The author, a botanist and folklorist, maintains that folk medicine should be regarded as the origin of all types of medical practice rather than an ignorant version of orthodox medicine. The oral tradition of folk medicine is based on many disciplines, including botany, anthropology, religion, zoology, and pharmaceutical science. Because oral traditions are often lost when practitioners die, this work makes a valuable contribution to folk medicine and to medical literature in general. It is also interesting to read and compiles in a single source the ailments, remedies, and often bizarre notions characteristic of folk medicine from the 16th century to today. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. All collections. J. M. Coggan formerly, University of Florida
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
More than 240 entries representing folk medical practices used in North America, Britain, Ireland, and Scotland were gleaned from extensive research. Articles are followed by no less than a dozen scholarly references related to the study of superstition and folklore. Ranging from a concise paragraph to several pages in length, entries include the treating of ailments and conditions such as Insect bites and stings0 (applying spit, urine, soda, vinegar, or well-chewed tobacco); Palsy0 (ingesting cowslip, applying leeches, or holding a dying chicken); and Wrinkles0 (drinking elderflower water, goat's milk, or an infusion of butterwort) and the supporting of Contraception0 (using birch bark diaphragms, impotence-inducing Rhus trilobata0 , or eating heart ventricles). Other entries discuss the various uses of remedies such as Dandelion0 and Holly.0 See also0 references follow each article, and an index completes the volume. In concept, this volume is an ambitious effort, an attempt to record for future consideration and study a host of old-world and new-world folk traditions. Such traditions are often passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation, but the current resurgence in using alternative treatment and natural remedies to treat ailments makes examination of this volume worthwhile. This is not a health reference book, however; it would be as much at home in folk culture collections as in a library's medical section. Public libraries with patron interest or academic libraries with collections in traditional medicine would profit from the author's historical approach. -- RBB Copyright 2004 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
Review by Booklist Review
