From popular medicine to medical populism : doctors, healers, and public power in Costa Rica, 1800-1940 / Steven Palmer.

Durham : Duke University Press, 2003.

xiv, 329 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Includes bibliographical references (p. [299]-318) and index.

Healers before doctors -- First doctors, licensed empirics, and the new politics of practice -- The formation of a biomedical vanguard -- Conventional practice : new science, old art, persistent heterogeneity -- Other healers : survival, revival, and public endorsement -- Midwives of the republic -- Hookworm disease and the popularization of biomedical practice -- The magician versus the monopolists : the popular medical eclecticism of Professor Carbell -- Medical populism : Dr. Calderón Guardia and the foundations of social security.