The history of medicine has for some time lacked an accessible historical overview of so-called alternative medicine. Robert Jütte's Geschichte der alternativen Medizin (Munich, 1996) is a notable exception; alas it remains untranslated. Roberta Bivins’ book is therefore a welcome attempt to fill this gap, its compact size belying the extensive nature of its content.
The reader is introduced to the basics and history of western, traditional Chinese and Indian Ayurvedic medicine, highlighting the surprising similarities in the different cultures’ medical cosmologies. In examining Chinese moxibustion and acupuncture, Bivins then illustrates the intercultural exchange of medical knowledge through lay and medical networks and its adaptation to prevalent western beliefs. Moxibustion against gout was enthusiastically taken up by eighteenth-century westerners, but suitably adjusted to eliminate “disturbingly foreign elements” and conform to western medico-theoretical frameworks. This would also be its downfall when the latter altered. Acupuncture resembled no existing procedure and was long ignored, re-emerging in 1820s orthodox practice as a pragmatic “trial-by-error needling in locus dolenti”. While it too fell out of favour, Bivins suggests that its popularity may have influenced the rise and acceptance of the needle as a medical instrument. Western alternatives are represented in the guise of homoeopathy and mesmerism. Unlike their “foreign” counterparts, both originated as reform movements within orthodox medicine, only gradually relocated outside the mainstream by a profession hostile not only to the therapies, but to some of the social changes these practices advocated. Moving beyond western spheres, a most interesting contrast is given by examining the impact of both orthodox and alternative western medicine in colonial India. Orthodoxy, with all its claims of superiority and intrinsic opposition to existing Indian medicine, as well as its close ties to colonial administration, was mistrusted. Western scientific medicine, and germ theory's supposed novelty and superiority in particular, were contested in light of existing Ayurvedic concepts and arguments for Indian medicine already being “scientific”. Homoeopathy and mesmerism meanwhile were more readily accepted, as they were not tainted by association with the colonial elite and could often be accommodated within local cultural and medical understanding.
Overall, Bivins shows that alternative practices and an interest in heterodoxy have been permanent features in the medical world. As the rise of biomedicine diminished the patient's power to influence orthodox medical practice, increasing consumer dissatisfaction made alternative, complementary and cross-cultural medicine a more attractive proposition, thus ensuring that the medical marketplace remained as varied as ever. The Indian example reminds us that our understanding of mainstream and alternative must be questioned, something already hinted at in the use of a question mark in the book's title, as even the bastion of orthodoxy can be the mistrusted “outsider” when introduced into a different cultural context. Bivins’ own positive experiences with both alternative and mainstream healing clearly inform her judgement throughout this book, resulting in an unbiased analysis that should give pause for thought even to the more obstinate members of the western medical profession.
The task of fitting the breadth of topics covered into a small tome could have become the book's Achilles’ heel, as the author tackles classical and modern, western and eastern themes over four centuries. Happily, Bivins’ already remarkably compendious account is complemented with a list of recommended further readings, thereby ensuring that interested readers can go beyond the provided text, following up themes in greater depth if they so wish. Combined with a lucid and engaging writing style, the resulting book is as accessible and entertaining to the layman as it is informative to scholars of the history of medicine seeking to familiarize themselves with alternative and cross-cultural perspectives.
