Medical mimesis: healing signs of a cosmopolitan ''quack''

Journal/Book: Amer Ethnologist. 1999; 26: 4350 North Fairfax Drive Suite 640, Arlington, VA 22203, USA. Amer Anthropological Assoc. 24-46.

Abstract: Drawing on recent insights into mimesis, I address the question of authenticity in indigenous medicine through an ethnography of an Ayurvedic pulse reader. I trace the conflicting rhetorics of authenticity spun by the doctor, the colleagues who consider him a quack, and myself: Ultimately I question the rituals of signification by which distinctions are drawn between medicine and placebo, doctor and quack, expertise and gimmickry, and between authentic cultural object and consumer-oriented copy.

Note: Article Langford JM, Univ Washington, Dept Anthropol, Box 353100, Seattle,WA 98195 USA

Keyword(s): medicine; mimesis; semiotics; Ayurveda; India; quackery

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