Medicine, magic, and religion: the Fitz Patrick lectures delivered before the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1915 and 1916

Cover; Medicine, Magic and Religion: The Fitzpatrick Lectures Delivered Before the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1915 and 1916; Copyright; Preface; Note to Second Edition; Chapter 1; Methods of Inquiry; Definition of the Social Processes; Concept of Disease by Various Peoples; Beliefs as to Causation of Disease; Disease or Injury Ascribed to Magic; Disease Ascribed to Object or Influence Projected into Victim's Body; Disease Attributed to Abstraction of Part of Body or Soul; Magical Action on Separated Part of Victim's Body or Touched Object. - Treatment: Magical or Religious Nature of RitesConcrete Nature of Beliefs Underlying the Rites; Chapter 2; Processes of Diagnosis and Prognosis; Disease Attributed to Infraction of Taboo; The Religious Element; Religious Character Acquired by Magical Process; Independent Occurrence of Disease; Variety in Leechcraft; Differentiation of Leech from Priest; Epidemic Disease; Relations of Economical and Juridical Nature; The Part Played by Suggestion; Rationality of the Leechcraft; Chapter 3; Evolution of Social Customs and Institutions; Independent Evolution. - Transmission as a Factor in Human CultureRelations of Medicine, Magic, and Religion in Various Countries; Australia; Polynesia; Indonesia; India; China and Japan; Africa; America; Similarity in Views on Causation and Treatment of Disease; Consideration of Rival Views; Two Widely Differing Beliefs in Causation of Disease; Remedies of the "Domestic" Order; Origin of Above Practices; Chapter 4; Methods of Solving the Problems; The Importance Attached to Numbers; The Criterion of Common Distribution; Some Difficulties Met with; Formulation of Guiding Principle

One of the most fascinating men of his generation, W.H.R. Rivers was a British doctor and psychiatrist as well as a leading ethnologist. Immortalized as the hero of Pat Barker's award-winning Regeneration trilogy, Rivers was the clinician who, in the First World War, cared for the poet Siegfried Sassoon and other infantry officers injured on the western front. His researches into the borders of psychiatry, medicine and religion made him a prominent member of the British intelligentsia of the time, a friend of H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell. Part of his appeal lay in an ex