Herbs and roots : a history of Chinese doctors in the American medical marketplace /

In non-technical prose, Shelton (Claremont McKenna College) recounts 200 years of Chinese medical practice in the US. Beginning in 1799 with the first known advertisement offering Chinese-style remedies in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, she traces the practitioners, promoters, and background of Chinese herbal medicine, pulse reading, moxibustion, and acupuncture through the Progressive Era and down to the present day. Without addressing medical efficacy, Shelton pursues the history of territorial disputes between mainstream and "irregular" medicine, presented as regulated and licensed Western practice founded on science versus traditional Chinese materia medica and related therapies. As Shelton argues, Chinese herbal practices may have overlapped with early American medical remedies, but the professionalization of medical practice after the Civil War converged with excesses of imperialism, Orientalism, and anti-Chinese exclusion. By then, however, Chinese doctors were practicing in almost every state, although concentrated on the West Coast and in Idaho, where Shelton's 20th-century case studies focus. Ironically, the 1882 legislation to limit Chinese immigration also pushed practitioners to serve non-Chinese patients. The effects of World War II and post-war immigration further helped to "de-Orientalize" Chinese medicine, facilitated by the countercultural embrace of acupuncture. Chinese medicine now draws serious attention from research institutes, medical schools, and insurance companies, and without it there would be no "American medicine." Summing Up: Recommended. All readers. --Christopher A. Reed, The Ohio State University

The practice of Chinese medicine in America dates back to the 19th century, and increased with the arrival of immigrants during California's gold rush, explains Shelton (history, Claremont McKenna Coll.; A Squatter's Republic). Even in colonial times, says the author, Americans prized land rich with wild ginseng because they knew the root could be profitably exported to China. Practitioners initially served the Chinese American community, but after the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 limited their customer base, they worked to expand their market to other ethnic groups. Interest in Chinese medicine declined after World War II, but grew again in the 1970s, in part because reporter Jacob Reston received acupuncture treatments when covering Richard Nixon's trip to Beijing. The author writes vividly about the ways Chinese medical doctors and herbalists navigated negative stereotypes and challenges from the medical professional community. VERDICT Recommended for readers curious about Chinese American history or the history of alternative medicine in the United States.--Joshua Wallace, Tarleton State Univ. Lib. Stephenville, TX