Woman As Healer by Jeanne Achterberg

 

Woman As Healer

by

Jeanne Achterberg

Often as I am researching my family history I run across a woman who was a nurse or a midwife.  These women always catch my eye and often are the ones that I choose to write a biographical sketch about.  In order to understand the world in the various time frames these women practiced their healing skills I wanted to read some background information.  Jeanne Achterberg's book Woman as Healer did a perfect job for me of providing some of that back ground.  She writes of the western experience and her book was written in the 1990s so some of her conclusions are dated, but the book covers the history of women in medicine from the earliest times to the late 20th Century.  It is as in-depth as a text book and not everyone will want to dive into this book but it was perfect for my needs.  There is a lack of material on this subject. Especially in the area of pioneer frontier folk medicine from the 18th and 19th century.  Although I will keep looking for more information,  I am sure Jeanne Achterberg's book is one I will return to as a source time and time again.   Please click on the book title and author's name above for more information and enjoy the video that follows.  

People Of The Book by Geraldine Brooks

 

People of The Book

by

Geraldine Brooks

I have not made it through very many books in 2022 but those that I have read have been extremely good.  Today I finished listening to an audio book, People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks.   This is the fourth book by Geraldine Brooks I have enjoyed and she will be an author I will often return to in the future.  People of the Book is a historical novel.  While fiction, it is based on a true story.   The novel is the story a Jewish prayer book that was created in the 1400s.  The story of its creation is woven in with the story of its survival of the Spanish Inquisition in the 1600s,  its survival of centuries of antisemitism including the later 1800s,  its survival during the 1940s and  Nazi Germany, and it's more recent survival of the Bosnian War in the early 1990s.  Each time the book was saved from the book burnings it was saved by a person and the creation of the book originally involved an artist and a scribe.  The people of the book are these people and those around them.  The novel also includes the story of a researcher looking for the stories that the book tells of every where it has been.  The techniques used to find these answers are fascinating.  The answers are teased out within the stories.  This novel is excellent.  It is a mystery story.  It is a historical novel.  It is multiple love stories.  And it is a book that teaches about historical research.  I highly recommend it.  Please click on the book title and author's name above to follow links to more information.  And enjoy the video that follows.