Women as healers : cross-cultural perspectives /

Although women often figure as patients in the literature of medical anthropology, this is the first cross-cultural study of women as healers. The book includes a thoughtful and wide-ranging introductory chapter by the editor, plus 11 original essays. The latter are presented in four groupings, each prefaced by the editor's integrative commentary: women as informal healers in familial and domestic contexts; healing with female or "mothering" metaphors; women as ritual specialists (centering on the life histories of three such specialists), and the responses of female practitioners--specifically lay-midwives--to culture change. The book is a solid contribution both to the anthropology of women and--by documenting the significance of gender in a variety of healing roles--to medical anthropology. Each essay is a competent and readable piece of work, but two are outstanding. One deals with the socioreligious roles of Christian Science practitioners, the other with sisterhood and professionalization among American lay midwives. Includes a useful 30-page bibliography and a nicely detailed index. Advanced undergraduates and up. E. Wellin University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee