A Vital Force

Homeopathy, as a medical system, presented a significant institutional and economic challenge to conventional medicine in the nineteenth century. Although contemporary critics portrayed homeopathic physicians as part of a sect whose treatment of disease was beyond the pale of acceptable medical practice, homeopathy was in many ways similar to established medicine. In this book, the author offers a new interpretation of womens roles in both mainstream and alternative modern medicine. She strengthens and clarifies the history of homeopathic women physicians, and creates a framework of…