Medical systems need to be understood from within

as experienced by healers, patients, and others whose minds and hearts have both become involved in this important human undertaking.

Exploring how the performance of healing transforms illness to health, initiate to ritual specialist

the authors show that performance does not merely refer to, but actually does something in the world.

These essays on the performance of healing in societies ranging from rainforest horticulturalists to dwellers in the American megalopolis

will touch readers' senses as well as their intellects.