Lexington Books Three Fruits: Nepali Ayurvedic Doctors on Health, Nature, and Social Change (Anthropology of Well-Being: Individual, Community, Society)

Mary M. Cameron first encountered an Ayurvedic medical practice in remote, western Nepal in 1978. In Three Fruits, Cameron traces Ayurvedic medical practices from those village healers to the professionally trained doctors in the Kathmandu Valley. An intimate portrayal of Ayurvedic doctors in Nepal during a period of political unrest and social change, Three Fruits connects the doctors' care for Nepal's valued medicinal plants to the boundless joy of health they desire for their patients. Combining ethnography with history and Indian philosophy, this detailed study weaves the elegant theory of tridosa (three humors) and the popular medicine trifala (three fruits) into the narrative accounts of doctors' multi-sited practice. Aware of rising global alternative medicine and environmental movements, the doctors speak to their relevance for Ayurveda and sustainable, integrated, and culturally meaningful plural medicine in Nepal. This book is recommended for scholars of anthropology, sociology, Asian studies, history, philosophy, ethnobotany, public health, and environmental studies. Review Cameron focuses on observations and interviews she carried out between 1997 and 2012 with eight Nepali Ayurveda doctors, including five women. She presents Ayurveda ("knowledge of life") as a plant-based, person-centered, holistic body of theory and practice that interconnects diet, daily routine, lifestyle, social milieu, mental attitude, and environment with bodily, sensorial, mental, and spiritual health. According to one of the interviewees, "plants can heal humans because both are microcosms of the same biosocial world. The "three fruits" of the title refer to a common Ayurvedic preparation, made from three varieties of trees that grow in Nepal, widely used for digestive problems and as a strengthening tonic. Cameron emphasizes that Ayurveda is accessible to ordinary people in Nepal, and according to the World Health Organization, "75 percent of the population use traditional medicine, mainly that based upon the Ayurvedic system. Ironically, political and economic threats to Ayurveda from supporters of allopathic medicine have enhanced the opportunity of women to engage in professional medicine within Ayurvedic institutions. In addition the conservation of medicinal plants is a valuable bridge between the interests of so-called "traditional" medicine and the environmental consciousness and well-being of modern society. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.-- "Choice" Cameron's analytic eye is brilliant as reading Three fruits was both painful and hilarious as she picked up experiences that trap Ayurveda in twilight between life and death and empowerment and depowerment. The marvelous attention to both emotion and logic is the vital sign of this scholarly ethnography. The book is very revealing of Nepal, Ayurveda and its doctors alike that it returns me again and again to think about the politics around health care. . . This book would be of interest to health activists, health practitioners, researchers and students of social sciences.-- "Anthropology Book Forum" "Three Fruits is a significant contribution to anthropological studies of Ayurveda in South Asia. Drawing on decades of research, Mary Cameron tells a compelling story of how practitioners of traditional healing adapted to a medical system that was predicated on modern medicine pushed by the state. The book is as much about the political economy of Ayurveda as it is about Ayurveda as a cultural system. Told through a series of biographies of ayurvedic practitioners, Cameron's narrative illuminates the challenges faced by resource-poor societies in the global south as they strive to reconcile traditional forms of knowledge with their commitment to modernization."--Arjun Guneratne, Macalester College Three Fruits is a magnificent study of Ayurveda as a vibrant intellectual and therapeutic tradition at a critica