Abstract
IN eastern Europe, and more particularly in the Balkans, folk medicine may be studied as a ‘going concern’ more thoroughly than in any other part of the Continent. It has not yet attained, or fallen to, the status of a superstition: among the southern Slavs it is still an integral element in the everyday system of thought. For this, partially, the absence of the medical practitioner, in the modern sense, in country districts to some extent is responsible. In Macedonia, for example, a few years ago in a large area around a country town not far from Salonika, the only medical attention available was that provided by a community of Roman Catholic Sisters, whose surgical appliances, simple as they were, would have seemed a little crude and antiquated even on Molière's stage.
Healing Ritual: Studies in the Technique and Tradition of the Southern Slavs
By P. Kemp. (Published in conjunction with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London.) Pp. xvi + 335 + 24 plates. (London: Faber and Faber, Ltd., 1935.) 21s. net.
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Healing Ritual: Studies in the Technique and Tradition of the Southern Slavs. Nature 137, 170 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/137170a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/137170a0