ABSTRACT
In current writing on the history and development of medicine ‘pluralism’ figures prominently. Cant and Sharma, for example, entitled their recent book A New Medical Pluralism? and asked whether the perceived increase in the popularity of alternative medicines meant that we were witnessing a new form of medical pluralism.1 The idea of pluralism seems to capture particularly well medical developments at a time when the world is supposed to be in its ‘post-modern’ and ‘post-colonial’ stage, and when references to cultural diversity and the variety of local practices abound. 2 Even the similarly ubiquitous term, ‘globalisation’, which implies, in the view of some, the undermining of variety and pluralism, has come to be seen by many instead as the apotheosis of a plurality of local practices, as encapsulated in the slogan ‘think globally and act locally’.3 Emphasis is on the wide range of medical approaches patients turn to and the multitude of existing and newly emerging professional interest groups and formal as well as informal medical institutions – from high-tech cardiac wards staffed by specialist nurses and doctors, to health clubs, traditional Chinese medicine centres, internet discussion groups and chat rooms filled by occasional as well as habitual web surfers, and spiritual or psychotherapeutic healing sessions attended by what Sharma called ‘earnest seekers’, ‘stable’ and ‘eclectic users’.4
