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Gary B. Ferngren. Medicine and Religion: A Historical Introduction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. xii + 241 pp. $24.95 (978-1-4214-1216-0).
The aim of Medicine and Religion is to provide "a concise but comprehensive survey that traces the history of the intersection of medicine and healing with religious traditions in the Western world from the earliest civilizations . . . to our own era" (p. x), intended for nonspecialist readers. Drawing on a vast body of classic and recent scholarship, including his own decades-long research, Ferngren offers those who wish to "gain an understanding of the place of religion in the Western medical and healing traditions" (p. x) a very rich picture of such interaction, based on the assumption that religion has always complemented medicine in whatever ways humans have historically confronted illness and disease.
The book is organized in eight chapters in chronological order, preceded by an introduction and followed by an epilogue. Chapter 1, on "The Ancient Near East," treats ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Hebrew cultures; a chapter is devoted respectively to "Greece," "Rome" (unsurprisingly the best chapter, given Ferngren's field of expertise), and "Early Christianity," which examines healing in the New Testament and the early Church. The narration then unfolds to "The Middle Ages," covering nearly a millennium from ca. 500...