Kirjahaku

It was only a coincidence that the NHS and the Empire Windrush (a ship carrying 492 migrants from Britain's West Indian colonies) arrived together. On 22 June 1948, as the ship's passengers disembarked, frantic preparations were already underway for 5 July, the Appointed Day when the nation's new National Health Service would first open its doors. The relationship between immigration and the NHS rapidly attained - and has enduringly retained - notable political and cultural significance. Both the Appointed Day and the post-war arrival of colonial and Commonwealth immigrants heralded transformative change. Together, they reshaped daily life in Britain and notions of 'Britishness' alike. Yet the reciprocal impacts of post-war immigration and medicine in post-war Britain have yet to be explored. Contagious Communities casts new light on a period which is beginning to attract significant historical interest. Roberta Bivins draws attention to the importance - but also the limitations - of medical knowledge, approaches, and professionals in mediating post-war British responses to race, ethnicity, and the emergence of new and distinctive ethnic communities. By presenting a wealth of newly available or previously ignored archival evidence, she interrogates and re-balances the political history of Britain's response to New Commonwealth immigration. Contagious Communities uses a set of linked case-studies to map the persistence of 'race' in British culture and medicine alike; the limits of belonging in a multi-ethnic welfare state; and the emergence of new and resolutely 'unimagined' communities of patients, researchers, clinicians, policy-makers, and citizens within the medical state and its global contact zones.

Walk into the local health food shop or pick up today's paper and the chances are that you'll see adverts for acupuncture and herbal medicine, hypnotists and homeopaths. Some doctors and scientists mourn the lost lustre of mainstream medicine and complain about a new breed of 'irrational' consumer. But what exactly is 'alternative' medicine? Is the astonishing popularity of alternative and multicultural medicine really such a recent development? And, given the success story of modern biomedical science, why are alternative and traditional treatments now so fashionable? Has the impersonal chill of high-tech medicine driven consumers into the arms of charismatic quacks? Or is it the cost of western medicine that makes its competitors look so attractive? Do patients seek hope, holism, or just the thrill of rebellion? This book seeks answers to all these questions and more. Comparing the medical systems of China, India, and the west - both mainstream and alternative - Roberta Bivins shows how medical expertise has migrated from one culture to another. From acupuncture in Regency England to homeopathy in the 'Wild West', Bivins unearths the roots of today's distinctions between alternative, complementary, and orthodox medicine, and shows how popular interest in medical alternatives - often of exotic origin - is a phenomenon with a long and fascinating pedigree.