Essays in medical anthropology

This book is supposed to be a warm thanks to all those who have supported the Austrian Ethnomedical Society (Österreichische Ethnomedizinische Gesellschaft) in the last three decades and who have turned it into what it is today. The 29 authors of this volume have been connected to the Society and the Unit Ethnomedicine and International Health, Medical University of Vienna, in various ways. Apart from our guest professors John Janzen, Wolfgang Jilek, Ma Kanwen, Margaret Lock, Richard Ralston, Sjaak van der Geest and Zohara Yaniv, many other medical anthropologists have contributed to this volume. After giving an introduction to the history of the Austrian Ethnomedical Society and other ethnomedical institutions, a selection of theories and research topics in current medical anthropology and ethnopharmacology is presented. This book is also dedicated to Els van Dongen and Nina Etkin, two medical anthropologists of international format and guest lecturers at the Unit, who recently passed away.