Nancy Butcher has gathered together some of the most unusual natural cures that have been proven effective today, and even throws in some unbelievable and-thankfully-abandoned therapies from times past.Filled with case histories of unique illnesses, historic documentation of strange medical practices, and the author's own insightful commentary, this book explains not only how to cure headaches, sleep better, and improve your sex life, but also that people with Cotard's syndrome actually believe they are dead.

    Argues that American food manufacturers are developing products that have a detrimental affect on human brain power and identifies a relationship between prepared foods and illness.

    It is called sodium bicarbonate, although you may know it as baking soda. For years, sodium bicarbonate has been used on a daily basis as part of a number of hospital treatments, but most people remain unaware of its full therapeutic potential. In his new book, Dr. Mark Sircus shows how this common compound may be used in the alleviation, or possibly even prevention, of many forms of illness. Sodium Bicarbonate begins with a basic overview of the everyday item known as baking soda, chronicling its long history of use as an effective home remedy. It then explains the role sodium bicarbonate plays in achieving optimal pH balance, which is revealed as an important factor in maintaining good health. The book goes on to detail how sodium bicarbonate and its effect on pH may benefit sufferers of a number of conditions, including kidney disease, fungal infection, influenza, hypertension, and even cancer. Finally, it lists the various ways in which sodium bicarbonate may be taken, suggesting the easiest and most effective method for your situation.By providing a modern approach to this time-honored remedy, Sodium Bicarbonate illustrates the need to see baking soda in a whole new light. While it was once considered simply an ingredient in baked goods and toothpaste, sodium bicarbonate contains powerful properties that may help you balance your system, regain your wellbeing, and avoid future health problems.

    Why is it, for example, that some men believe, against all reason, that vandals stole their penises, even though they're in good physical shape? In The Geography of Madness, acclaimed magazine writer Frank Bures travels around the world to trace culture-bound syndromes to their sources—and in the process, tells a remarkable story about the strange things all of us believe.Book Club Discussion Questions: For the paperback edition, a list of book club discussion questions is also being issued. If you’d like to add the The Geography of Madness to your group’s reading list, here are several conversation starters:1) One main themes of The Geography of Madness is that stories (about the world, about our lives, about our bodies) are contagious. Can you think of a story, or an experience, that changed what you believed was possible?2) Do you believe the brain and the mind are the same thing? If not, what is the difference? 3) The stories in The Geography of Madness raise the question of free will: How much do you choose the life you live? How much do you learn (or catch) you life choices from those around you? 4) Have you ever found yourself immersed in a situation where you did not know the rules? What was that like?5) In The Geography of Madness, the author argues that our mindset and our expectations have biological consequences. Does that resemble your experience? If so, how?6) Try to imagine living in a world where it was possible to have your genitals stolen, either by magic or by ghosts. How would you protect yourself?7) In The Geography of Madness, the author argues that a strong sense of self—of your story— can help to activate your endogenous (internal) healing systems and vice versa. Do you remember a time when a stressful or difficult period seemed to be followed by a health problem or sickness? 8) In The Geography of Madness, did anyone’s genital actually disappear? If not, what happened? Does it matter?9) Is there a belief that everyone around you holds, but that you don’t share? How did you come to doubt this?10) The Handbook of Depression points to a genetic marker associated with greater vulnerability to depression. Yet this link only holds true in Western cultures. Why would that be?11) Have you ever had a health problem you were afraid to talk about, or that others didn’t believe in?12) In The Geography of Madness, the author argues that cultural syndromes are “real” syndromes, but that their causes might not lie where we think they do. Do you think they are “real” or “imaginary”? 13) Over the last few years, gluten intolerance has been rising. This rise occurs at a time of increasing anxiety about the relationship between food, health and identity. What’s changed: our bodies or our culture?14) After reading The Geography of Madness, how would you describe what culture is?15) How much does a your culture create you? How much do you create your culture?16) Have you ever had a cultural syndrome?

    "Doctors are men who prescribe medicines of which they know little, to cure diseases of which they know less, in human beings of whom they know nothing." Voltaire. The conventional approach adopted by most healthcare systems entails the use of ‘medicine’ to treat human disease. The idea encapsulated by the above quote attributed to Voltaire, the nom de plume of François-Marie Arouet (1694-1778), will no doubt be regarded by most people as inapplicable to 21st century healthcare, especially the system known as modern medicine. The reason that people would consider this idea to no longer be relevant is likely to be based on the assumption that ‘medical science’ has made significant advances since the 18th century and that 21st century doctors therefore possess a thorough, if not quite complete, knowledge of medicines, diseases and the human body. Unfortunately, however, this would be a mistaken assumption; as this book will demonstrate.

    In this selection from The Body, Bill Bryson introduces us to the mysterious, and often devastating, world of disease.

    They unearthed a treasure trove of Cretaceous dinosaurs and mammals, including several new species, that has already helped to reshape our understanding of the dinosaur age. In Dinosaurs of the Flaming Cliffs, team leader Michael Novacek, Provost of Science of the American Museum of Natural History and Curator of Vertebrate Paleontology, re-creates the day-to-day drama of field exploration over the past six years in the Gobi and recounts his and his colleagues' historic discoveries, reported in front-page headlines across the world. In a remarkable narrative that interweaves expedition chapters with in-depth scientific discussions on the nature and importance of the fossil record, Novacek takes us on a journey that explores the very nature of scientific inquiry and dinosaur research.

    A fascinating and funny trip through humanity’s often misguided attempts to make us better.

    Only it didn't. Vic's wife, Jeri, and older daughter, Rachael, were still very much alive, as were his two demanding careers. What did end was his worldview: one based on long-held assumptions and beliefs about life, death, disease, health, risk, and ultimate purpose-subjects on which he had been writing and speaking for years-but the validity of which he now questioned.Vic's experience of being "broken open" (to take bestselling author Elizabeth Lesser's phrase) set him on a life transforming journey through ancient and modern philosophy, literature, psychology, neuroscience, and Egyptology. Along the way, Vic was introduced to an unlikely role model: a six-legged superhero whose unique relationship with a ball of excrement forever altered Vic's outlook. A self-help guide, college lecture, confessional, and time-travel adventure all rolled into one, On Purpose uses a beautiful, fantasy-fueled, graphic novel format to tell a story of self-discovery and personal growth you'll never forget.From the Foreword: "Writing this book has given Vic Strecher a powerful sense of meaning. Reading it may do the same for you. It did for me. The light drives out the darkness and we can experience our world anew, filled with pleasure, joy, and meaning." - Dean Ornish, M.D.

    Drawing on remarkable new science, Tinderbox overturns the conventional wisdom on the origins of this deadly pandemic and the best ways to fight it today.Recent genetic studies have traced the birth of HIV to the forbidding equatorial forests of Cameroon, where chimpanzees carried the virus for millennia without causing a major outbreak in humans. During the Scramble for Africa, colonial companies blazed new routes through the jungle in search of rubber and other riches, sending African porters into remote regions rarely traveled before. It was here that humans first contracted the strain of HIV that would eventually cause 99 percent of AIDS deaths around the world.Western powers were key actors in turning a localized outbreak into a sprawling epidemic as bustling new trade routes, modern colonial cities, and the rise of prostitution sped the virus across Africa. Christian missionaries campaigned to suppress polygamy, but left in its place fractured sexual cultures that proved uncommonly vulnerable to HIV.  Equally devastating was the gradual loss of the African ritual of male circumcision, which recent studies have shown offers significant protection against infection.Timberg and Halperin argue that the same Western hubris that marked the colonial era has hamstrung the effort to fight HIV. From the United Nations AIDS program to the Bush administration's historic relief campaign, global health officials have favored well-meaning Western approaches--abstinence campaigns, condom promotion, HIV testing--that have proven ineffective in slowing the epidemic in Africa. Meanwhile they have overlooked homegrown African initiatives aimed squarely at the behaviors spreading the virus. In a riveting narrative that stretches from colonial Leopoldville to 1980s San Francisco to South Africa today, Tinderbox reveals how human hands unleashed this epidemic and can now overcome it, if only we learn the lessons of the past.

    Back again are even more amazing birthing tales, including those from women who were babies in earlier editions and stories about Old Order Amish women attended by the Farm midwives.Also new is information about the safety of techniques routinely used in hospitals during and after birth, information on postpartum depression and maternal death, and recent statistics on births managed by The Farm Midwives.From the amazing birthing tales to care of the newborn, Spiritual Midwifery is still one of the best books an expectant mother could own. Includes resources for doulas, childbirth educators, birth centers, and other organizations and alliances dedicated to improving maternity care at home and in hospitals.

    John McDougall, bestselling author and creator of the nationally renowned diet and exercise McDougall Plan, presents a cookbook that turns the popular thinking about carbs and weight control upside down. Filled with some of John and Mary McDougall’s favorite vegetarian recipes from their very own kitchen, this book is a great addition to your personal library if you are considering becoming a vegetarian or want a refresher course on the must-have nutrients your body needs to run like a lean, clean machine.Dr. John McDougall is a certified internist who has been studying and writing about the effect of nutrition on disease for more than 30 years. Mary McDougall has contributed her nutritional expertise and recipes as co-author on many of the bestselling McDougall books.

    Symptoms run from mild lethargy to severe arthritis to incapacitating mental dysfunction. And despite medical pronouncements to the contrary, extensive research has found that tests for the disease are not very reliable and antibiotics are only partially effective; up to 35 percent of those infected will not respond to treatment or will relapse. The spirochetes that cause Lyme are stealth pathogens--they can hide within cells or alter their form so that antibiotics cannot affect them. Lyme disease is, in fact, a potent, emerging epidemic disease for which technological medicine is only partially effective.Healing Lyme examines the leading, scientific research on Lyme infection, its tests and treatments, and outlines the most potent herbal medicines and supplements that offer help--either alone or in combination with antibiotics--for preventing and healing the disease. It is the essential guide to Lyme infection and its treatment.

    But as it is often said nothing ever really happened unless it is written down. There are so many stories to tell of the agonies and triumphs of both doctors and patients, who have peopled this venerable institution through the ages. I wrote the stories because I firmly believe that healing is a mutual process; that the healer is very often himself healed as he goes about caring for the ailing person. So the stories bite both ways.”

    Wallace Wattles, one of the father of motivation and success, whose work inspired "the secret", is now complete in one great volume of 9 BOOKS: — The Science of Getting Rich — The Science of Being Great — The Science of Being Well — How to Get What You Want — A New Christ — Jesus: The Man and his Work — Making the Man who can (How to Promote Yourself) — The New Science of Living and Healing — Hellfire Harrison (a novel)