Vital Energy the Antebellum Health Movement
Abstract: While the notion of the relationship between well-being and energy attracts nurses, the idea is not new to health care. During antebellum America a “medical counterculture” embraced an assortment of holistic beliefs which challenged orthodox medicine. This historical essay describes the holistic health movement of the 1800's and emphasizes the notion that health is both a product and a prisoner of any epoch's social, economic, and intellectual context. Although the past is not prologue, the essay suggests patterns and reactions of the health movement which will seem familiar to holisic health nurse practioners. The conceptual struggle of mind/body interaction and the questions regarding which entity has priority or supremacy have puzzled health practioners for centuries.