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(1991) Anthropologies of medicine, Wiesbaden, Vieweg+Teubner.
Images and interpretations of severe illness
ethnological aspects of dealing with cancer
Jutta Dornheim
pp. 157-173
About the time I was conducting the present study, the Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg began receiving an interesting series of letters. In these letters (received from 1977 to 1979) people from every social class aired their views about the cause and cure of cancer. No one had solicited the correspondents' opinions; they had written on their own initiative. Among the causes of cancer mentioned were infection from the clothes of cancer sufferers as well as from 'sexual intercourse", 'sleeping around" and "licentiousness". One writer thought that the pathogen orbits within the atom of a cancer cell; another that it lies in the nucleus of a negatively-charged entity consisting of gas or cancer salmonellae. Therapeutic proposals extended from dietary measures, such as fasting or the intake of fresh cucumber juice, to religious counsel and magic rituals.
Publication details
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-322-87859-5_12
Full citation:
Dornheim, J. (1991)., Images and interpretations of severe illness: ethnological aspects of dealing with cancer, in B. Pfleiderer & G. Bibeau (eds.), Anthropologies of medicine, Wiesbaden, Vieweg+Teubner, pp. 157-173.
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