Description
This book combines historical biography with a focal point at the role of the practitioner within the folk health-care system, and ethnobotany, including a description of the active ingredients of the herbs used in African American herbal medicine. The contributions of European Colonial, American Indian, and African practices to the development of latest African American folk medicine are discussed. Along with showing John Lee’s method to folk medicine, the volume provides descriptions and illustrations of the primary herbs used. Folk Wisdom and Mother Wit provides a basic historical framework and background to the continuing viability of a folk medical system in line with a pluralism combining biomedicine and traditional health care. As such, it is going to be of value to scholars and students of medical anthropology in addition to Black Studies.