LIST OF TABLES; LIST OF FIGURES; ABBREVIATIONS; ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS; PREFACE; CONCLUSION: RELIGION, MEDICINE, AND MIRACLES; APPENDIX A: A NOTE ON SOURCES AND METHOD; APPENDIX B: SAINTS, BLESSEDS, AND THE SOURCES ON THEIR MIRACLES; APPENDIX C: CANONIZATIONS AND BEATIFICATIONS IN THIS STUDY BY YEAR; NOTES; BIBLIOGRAPHY; INDEX
Jacalyn Duffin, physician and historian, holds the Hannah Chair for the History of Medicine, Queen's University, Ontario.
"For individual sufferers, healing and survival can be both
spiritual and physical experiences. Dr. Duffin -- medical
practitioner and historian -- boldly delves into a seldom-analyzed
relationship between religion and medicine. Medically attested
miracles are an unusual topic for research, often featured to
praise or ridicule phenomena lacking scientific explanation. The
author's meticulous and balanced analysis of past investigations
into the miraculous
coupled with her keen clinical eye will be widely read and
discussed by skeptics and believers alike." --Guenter B. Risse,
M.D., Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of California, San
Francisco
"This book is an important new study of the relationship between
religion and medicine. Penned by a well-established medical
scientist and modern historian, it places this relationship at the
forefront of research on miracles...it opens up a realm of
opportunities to historians, for whom it will no doubt become a
seminal work. Medievalists, too, will now have to reconsider their
own work in the light of Duffin's findings."--New England Journal
of
Medicine
"A thoroughly engaging, daring exploration of depositions from
canonization proceedings in the Vatican Archives that reveals the
centrality of medical judgment and physicians' testimony in the
adjudication of miracles during the past four hundred years. Rich
in stories about the place and meanings of miracles in everyday
life, in Duffin's hands these records offer astonishingly fresh
insight into the interplay between religion and medicine and into
the wider
cultural power of medicine in the modern world." --John Harley
Warner, Avalon Professor of the History of Medicine, Yale
University
"Drawing upon Vatican canonization records, Jacalyn Duffin's study
of healing miracles examines the sometimes competitive, sometimes
complementary relationships between pre-modern and modern medicine
and the cult of the saints. Her thorough reading of some 1,400
miracle accounts unearths patterns of spiritual healing that have
been a vital part of Europeans' lives and her keen eye for detail
provides welcome insights into the long-neglected story of faith
and
its healing potential." --Philip Soergel, Department of History,
University of Maryland
"Duffin's account of the medical history of the canonization
process is in many respects revelatory....Duffin's interrogation of
the records is thoughtful and multilayered; the reflections in her
concluding section are of special interest, because they relate to
the relationship between religion, medicine, and the miracles of
healing."--JAMA
"Written by a medical historian, this research is of great
interest."--Pediatric Endocrinology Reviews
"This is pioneering research with great theoretical and practical
interest; it should engage anyone curous about the unknown limits
of human capacity."--Journal of Scientific Exploration
"Although not the first scholar to broach the subject of miracles
through the lens of medical science, Duffin brings a refreshingly
new perspective and style... Overall, this is a thoughtful and
thought-provoking book that should prove valuable to a range of
readers, including historians and sociologists of medicine and
religion, as well as believers and skeptics of the miraculous."
--Journal of the History of Medicine
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
