An alternative medical system emphasizing prevention through healthy living, positive mind-body-spirit strength, and therapeutics to enhance the body's innate healing processes, naturopathy has gained legitimacy in recent years. In Nature's Path-the first comprehensive book to examine the complex history and culture of American naturopathy-Susan E. Cayleff tells the fascinating story of the movement's nineteenth-century roots. While early naturopaths were sometimes divided by infighting, they all believed in the healing properties of water, nutrition, exercise, the sun, and clean, fresh air. Their political activism was vital to their professional formation: they loathed the invasive, depletive practices of traditional medicine and protested against medical procedures that addressed symptoms rather than disease causes while resisting processed foods, pharmaceuticals, environmental toxins, and atomic energy. Cayleff describes the development of naturopathy's philosophies and therapeutics and details the efforts of its proponents to institutionalize the field. She recognizes notable naturopathic leaders, explores why women doctors, organizers, teachers, and authors played such a strong role in the movement, and identifies countercultural views-such as antivivisection, antivaccination, and vegetarianism-held by idealistic naturopaths from 1896 to the present. Nature's Path tracks a radical cultural critique, medical system, and way of life that links body, soul, mind, and daily purpose. It is a must-read for historians of medicine and scholars in women's studies and political history, as well as for naturopaths and all readers interested in alternative medicine.

An engaging history of naturopathy, this exhaustively researched and meticulously documented book is an invaluable contribution to nineteenth- and twentieth-century medical and social history. -- Barbara Melosh, author of The Physician's Hand: Nurses and Nursing in the Twentieth Century

About the Author
Susan E. Cayleff is a professor in the Department of Women's Studies at San Diego State University. She is the author of Wash and Be Healed: The Water-Cure Movement and Women's Health.

Reviews
. . . in-depth look at late 19th century healing . . .
-American Herb Association Quarterly
. . . Nature's Path is an entertaining and illuminating work that will be enjoyed by those readers interested in American naturopathy, and the social history of medicine more generally.
-Isis
Cayleff holds true to her purpose and has written a fine history of naturopathy that will stand the test of time.
-The Historian



Book Information
ISBN 9781421419039
Author Susan E. Cayleff
Format Hardback
Page Count 408
Imprint Johns Hopkins University Press
Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press
Weight(grams) 680g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 31mm