James A. Gillespie, The price of health: Australian governments and medical politics 1910–1960, Studies in Australian History, Cambridge University Press, 1991, pp. xvii, 358, £40.00, $59.50 (0-521-38183-5). - Roy Macleod and Donald Denoon, Health and healing in tropical Australia and Papua New Guinea, Townsville, James Cook University of North Queensland, 1991, pp. viii, 214, A$16.00 (within Australia plus postage), A$25.00 (outside Australia incl. postage) (0-86443-490-5). - Lynda Bryder (ed.), A healthy country: essays on the social history of medicine in New Zealand, New Zealand, Bridget Williams Books, 1991, pp. 252, NZ$29.95 (0-908912-10-2).

ABSTRACT: Utilizing an interpretive model based on "family resem-blances," this paper provides a survey of Daoist teachers and organizations in North America, giving particular attention to those individuals who fall on the "close relations" (Daoist priests, lineage holders) side of the spectrum. The paper first discusses the question of identity with respect to American Daoists. The author advocates the principle of self-identification as an initial methodology, with the additional distinction of Daoist adherents (birthright and convert) and sympathizers. Next, the paper discusses Daoist teachers and organizations in North America via two primary chartological methods: (1) a chronological discussion of the social history of Daoism in North America; and (2) an interpretive framework centering on three models, namely, literati, communal or ritual, and self-cultivation. The author emphasizes that the predominant model in American Daoism centers on self-cultivation, focusing particularly on personal health and healing.*

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Establishment and Dissent in Nineteenth-Century Medicine: An Exploration of some Correspondence and Connections Between Religious and Medical Belief-Systems in Early Industrial England

Studies in Church History ◽

10.1017/s0424208400009360 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 19 ◽

pp. 165-189 ◽

Cited By ~ 12

Author(s):

John V. Pickstone

Keyword(s):

History Of Medicine ◽

Social History ◽

Belief Systems ◽

Historical Sociology ◽

Sociology Of Religion ◽

Industrial Society ◽

Medical Attendant ◽

The Social ◽

History Of ◽

Social History Of Medicine

I know the historical sociology of religion only as an outsider; as an historian of medicine helped by that literature to a better understanding of early industrial society and perhaps to a clearer vision of what the social history of medicine ought to be. To read a recent review of the social history of religion, such as A. D. Gilbert’s Religion and Society in Industrial England, Church, Chapel and Social Change, 1740-1914, is to recognise how underdeveloped by comparison is the social history of medicine. Historians of medicine have the equivalent of church histories, of histories of theology and, of course, biographies of divines, but we lack the quantitative and comprehensive surveys of the chronological and geographical patterns in lay attendance and membership, and in professional recruitment and modes of work. For as long as medicine was generally only a transaction between an individual and his medical attendant, few statistics were produced and there is little national data. Yet there are very few local studies of how diseases were handled and how the various kinds of practitioner interacted with each other and with their various publics, so it will be some time before we shall be able to generalise on such matters.

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