The DOI matches its Crossref record; 32 of the 32 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The Charm of Medicines: Metaphors and Metonyms
Abstract
The ready availability and extreme popularity of Western pharmaceuticals in developing countries poses important general issues for medical anthropology. In attempting to explain why medicines are so attractive in so many different cultures, this article suggests that they facilitate particular social and symbolic processes. The key to their charm is their con‐creteness; in them healing is objectified. As things, they allow therapy to be disengagedfrom its social entanglements. Medicines are commodities which pass from one context of meaning to another. As substances, they are “good to think with” in both metaphoric and metonymic senses. They enhance the perception of illness as something tangible, and they facilitate communication about experiences that may be difficult to express. In the course of their transaction, they bear with them associations to authoritative professionals and the potency and potential of other cultural contexts of which they once were a part.
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Cites
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Disease Etiologies in Non‐Western Medical Systems
Foster, G. M. (1976) · American Anthropologist · doi:10.1525/aa.1976.78.4.02a00030 · Cited by 455
The Problem of medical knowledge : examining the social construction of medicine
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Persuasions and Performances: The Play of Tropes in Culture
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The Context of Medicines in Developing Countries: Studies in Pharmaceutical Anthropology
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Martindale–The Extra Pharmacopoeia
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Cited by
THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF PHARMACEUTICALS: A Biographical Approach
Geest, S. V. D., Whyte, S. R., & Hardon, A. (1996) · Annual Review of Anthropology · doi:10.1146/annurev.anthro.25.1.153 · Cited by 494
Self-citationPharmacies, self-medication and pharmaceutical marketing in Bombay, India
Kamat, V. R., & Nichter, M. (1998) · Social Science & Medicine · doi:10.1016/s0277-9536(98)00134-8 · Cited by 340
Managing multiple morbidity in mid-life: A qualitative study of attitudes to drug use
Townsend, A., Hunt, K., & Wyke, S. (2003) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.327.7419.837 · Cited by 181
‘Buddhism, Science, and Market: The Globalisation of Tibetan Medicine’
JANES, C. R. (2002) · Anthropology & Medicine · doi:10.1080/13648470216337 · Cited by 69
Whither environmental psychology? The transpersonal ecopsychology crossroads
Reser, J. P. (1995) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/0272-4944(95)90006-3 · Cited by 50
Metadata
- Authors
- van der Geest, S., & Whyte, S. R.
- Venue
- Medical Anthropology Quarterly
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 1989-12
- Volume
- 3
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 345-367
- ISSN
- 0745-5194 (ISSN-L)
- 1548-1387
- OpenAlex
- W2051640594
- Cited by
- 277
- References
- 32
- FWCI
- 22.74
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- van der Geest, S., & Whyte, S. R. (1989). The Charm of Medicines: Metaphors and Metonyms. Medical Anthropology Quarterly. https://doi.org/10.1525/maq.1989.3.4.02a00030
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Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
