Moral Treatment and ‘The Dialectic of the Family’

Abstract

"First published in Great Britain 2000 by MacMillan Press Ltd." In 1825, an English Earl, crippled with pain and despairing of his usual physicians, invited a young and unconventional doctor into his home. Days later, the Earl was relieved, and the doctor rich. To celebrate his remarkable recovery, the nobleman re-named his favorite racehorse to honor the technique that cured him: "acupuncture." In an engaging account, Roberta Bivins vivifies the characters, texts, and events of acupuncture's (often surprising) 300 year history in Britain, and begins to explain acupuncture's enduring appeal. Introduction: Cultural Specificity and the Cross-Cultural Transmission of Expert Knowledge -- 1. Expectations and Expertise: Early British Responses to Chinese Medicine and Technology -- 2. The Needle Transfixed: Ten Rhyne, Kaempfer and the European Gaze -- 3. Sharpening the Needle: British Interpretations of Acupuncture, 1802-30 -- 4. Networks and Innovations: the Persistence of British Acupuncture, 1828-90 -- Conclusions: Continuities in Cross-Cultural Medicine.