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History of Health Care in the U.S. & in Asia

The purpose of this research is to compare health care in the United States with health care in Asia, both in the modern period and with reference to historical patterns. The plan of the research will be to set forth the historical context in which the comparison can be grounded, and then to discuss the principal ways in which philosophies of health care can be readily identified as American or Asian in character.

Late into the nineteenth century, after the victory of such figures as Galileo, Newton, Priestley, and Darwin had given credence and authority to the scientific method in a variety of disciplines, Western health care was grounded to some degree in imaginative and magical healing powers. The residue of the "predictive" and "diagnostic" abilities of astrology and command of the four elements--earth, air, fire, and water (Burke 120, 124). Miller cites John Elliotson, professor of medicine in London who "introduced the stethoscope into English medicine" (79); Elliotson died in 1868. Now this man of science was also a devotee of one Franz Anton Mesmer, whose theory of Animal Magnetism and "universal fluid" survived his death in 1815 by many decades and was employed in quest not only of utopian social theory but also as a mechanism of healing all manner of afflictions (74-6). While there was characterization of Mesmer's theory and charismatic charm as quackery by some in the European medical establishment, Miller points out that his remedies, which owed a good deal of the efficacy they had to the power of suggestion, were "no more irrational, no more unscientific, than the orthodox remedies of purging, blood-letting, and cupping." Miller continues:

Even at the end of the eighteenth century, so-called conventional medicine was a tissue of contradictions: there were no consistent intellectual standards, and no organized body of scientific principles (Miller 76).

In the Western tradition, the power of suggestion became "enshr...

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History of Health Care in the U.S. & in Asia. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 01:41, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1712155.html