As we watch another agonizing attempt to shift the future of healthcare in the United States, we are reminded of the longevity of this crisis, and how firmly entrenched we are in a system that doesn't work. Witches, Midwives, and Nurses, first published by the Feminist Press in 1973, is an essential book about the corruption of the medical establishment and its historic roots in witch hunters. In this new edition, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English have written an entirely new chapter that delves into the current fascination with and controversies about witches, exposing our fears and fantasies. They build on their classic exposé on the demonization of women healers and the political and economic monopolization of medicine. This quick history brings us up-to-date, exploring today's changing attitudes toward childbirth, alternative medicine, and modern-day witches.

As we watch another agonizing attempt to shift the future of health care in the United States, we are reminded of the longevity of this crisis, and how firmly entrenched we are in a system that doesn't work. Witches, Midwives, and Nurses, first published by The Feminist Press in 1973, is an essential book about the corruption of the medical establishment and its historic roots in witch hunters. In this new edition, Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English have written an entirely new chapter that delves into the current fascination with and controversies about witches, exposing our fears and fantasies. They build on their classic expos on the demonization of women healers and the political and economic monopolization of medicine. This quick history brings us up-to-date, exploring today's changing attitudes toward childbirth, alternative medicine, and modern-day witches.

Traditionally women have been healers who also used empirical evidence and proven techniques to heal. Yet male "doctors", who based their healing practices on the whims of the Church, continuously tried to discredit these successful healers. Throughout the 14th-17th centuries in Europe, these doctors labeled women healers witches and had them executed to maintain their authority and their authority and that of the Church and the ruling class. These witches treated peasants and may have led peasant rebellions. Another way of barring women from the male and, supposedly, "correct" system was establishing medical schools in Medieval Europe which barred women. These techniques were successful in that the emerging middle classes viewed traditional women healers as superstitious and even went so far as to allow males into the last preserve of female healing--midwifery. In colonial America and the early years of the US, women partook equally in people's medicine. Anyone who claimed to heal--regardless of sex, race, or formal training- -could practice medicine. In the early 1800s, however, a group of male, middle class "regular" doctors began their campaign to rid the US of lay practitioners. The Popular Health Movement of the 1830s-1840s set them back, however, and the working class denounced medical elitism. On the offensive in 1848, the regulars formed a national professional organization called the American Medical Association. This began the suppression of women practitioners which included suggesting that respectable women would not travel at night and barring women from medical schools. Further, the medical profession put pressure on states to outlaw midwifery and allow doctors only to practice obstetrics. Nursing remained that last female domain in health and, due to nurse reformers, nurses became subservient, patient, obedient helpers. Women had found their "rightful" place in medicine.

This groundbreaking work examines the role of women in the Western healing traditions. Drawing on the disciplines of history, anthropology, botany, archaeology, and the behavioral sciences, Jeanne Achterberg discusses the ancient cultures in which women worked as independent and honored healers; the persecution of women healers in the witch hunts of the Middle Ages; the development of midwifery and nursing as women's professions in the nineteenth century; and the current role of women and the state of the healing arts, as a time of crisis in the health-care professions coincides with the reemergence of feminine values.

In this sequel to their underground bestseller Witches, Midwives, and Nurses, Ehrenreich and English document the tradition of American sexism in medicine before and after the turn of the century. Citing numerous 'treatments' and 'rest cures' perpetrated on women through the decades, they analyze the biomedical rationales used to justify sex discrimination.

"Women, the body and primitive accumulation"--Cover.