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Bulletin of the History of Medicine 76.3 (2002) 613-614



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Book Review

America's Botanico-Medical Movements:
Vox Populi


Alex Berman and Michael A. Flannery. America's Botanico-Medical Movements: Vox Populi. New York: Pharmaceutical Products Press, 2001. xxiii + 289 pp. Ill. $69.95 (cloth, 0-7890-0899-8), $24.95 (paperbound, 0-7890-1235-9).

One of the objectives of this collaboration of Alex Berman and Michael Flannery is to provide a broad and in-depth account of the foreign and domestic origins of American botanical healing, with emphasis on the followers and popular competitors of Samuel Thomson, from the antebellum period to the present-day herbal renaissance. However familiar its themes may be to a large audience, that this volume is a welcome supplement to our understanding of the history of popular health movements in the United States is suggested by the inclusion of prepublication reviews by established scholars including Gregory J. Higby, John Parascandola, and John M. Riddle. Additional endorsement is provided in the foreword by Thomson's most recent biographer, John S. Haller.

The precise mechanics of this collaboration are not explicit, but the authors worked along similar historical themes at institutional neighbors for a number of years. Before assuming the associate directorship for Historical Collections at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Flannery directed the Lloyd Library and wrote a fine biography of John Uri Lloyd, a leading medical botanist-eclectic. Berman, who died on 29 June 2000, was professor emeritus of history and historical studies in pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati. "This book," writes Flannery, "represents the collaboration of mentor and protégé" (p. xxi).

In "Historiographical Review—The Berman Legacy," Flannery identifies the primary objective of the book. Because Berman was the pioneer in historical studies of alternative medicine in the United States, and because his work remained "scattered in a number of different journals" and his "contributions have sometimes been missed by historians" (p. xix), there was a need to provide a showcase for that body of work. The mentor's nine journal articles and unpublished doctoral dissertation, "The Impact of the Nineteenth-Century Botanico-Medical Movement on American Pharmacy and Medicine" (University of Wisconsin at Madison, 1954), are major components of the narrative, as are five articles and a book by the protégé.

A third objective is especially explicit in chapter 7, "Where Have All the Botanics Gone?" The authors consider the book a timely response to growing social and political concerns arising from the brisk sales of dietary supplements and self-help herbalist manuals, and the increasing complexity, regulation, expense, and chemotherapy-based nature of mainstream medical interventionism. True, they argue that the 1992 Health Freedom Act echoed Thomson's egalitarian attack against "the bureaucratic elite as the enemy of therapeutic democracy" (p. 162). However, given the emergence of drug-resistant strains of pathogens, they also acknowledge the necessity of ongoing scientific efforts to search for and verify botanic alternatives. In 2000, for example, the FDA began revising the 1994 Dietary Supplement and Education Act to create standards for purity and efficacy of botanical supplements. Because of the political and scientific dimensions of that agency, the reader can only speculate on the "success" of such efforts. [End Page 613] Berman and Flannery add important detail to one perspective on an important element of a national dilemma. That is, in an age of consumer empowerment and lingering distrust of authority, the right of the individual to have access to alternatives cannot guarantee reasonable expectations of safety.

Flannery correctly states that this volume is "more than an exercise in nostalgic reverence" (p. xix) for the late Alex Berman. It will serve well as a standard reference in the genre, and no doubt will encourage future research.

 



Eric Howard Christianson
University of Kentucky

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