This is an innovative investigation of pluralism in health care. Using both extensive archival
material and oral histories it examines relationships between indigenous healing missionary
medicine and 'western' biomedicine. The book includes the different regions within South
Africa although focusing in most detail on the Cape the earliest area of white settlement. In
a wide-ranging survey the division in medicine between 'western' and indigenous medicine is
analysed through an exploration of the evolving practices of healers missionaries doctors and
nurses. The book considers the extent to which there was a strategic crossing of boundaries in
the construction of hybrid practices by these practitioners and the extent to which patients
pursued health by sampling diverse care options. Starting with missionary penetration during
the early nineteenth century the volume outlines interventions by the colonial state in
medicine and public health and the continued resilience of indigenous healing in the face of
this. The book ends by relating past to present in scrutinising the legacy of historical
structures - including those of the apartheid state - for current health care and in briefly
discussing the huge challenges that the HIV Aids pandemic poses in impacting on them. The book
thus provides an inclusive history of medicine for the 'New' South Africa.
