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Honey, Mud, Maggots and Other Medical Marvels (and that is only part of the
title of Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein’s book) is an entirely rational plea
for doctors and researchers not to dismiss all folk treatments of injuries or
diseases as old wives’ tales. Such remedies have been found efficacious and even
led to spectacular successes, the most famous being Edward Jenner’s discovery of
vaccination against smallpox. The authors are good on such histories and, more
valuably, are more than interesting on ancient, abandoned treatments and
contemporary “alternative” cures that warrant serious study. Published by
Houghton Mifflin, $24, ISBN 039582298X.