Healing Herbs of the Upper Rio Grande or Adams Navel

Healing Herbs of the Upper Rio Grande: Traditional Medicine of the Southwest

Author: LSM Curtin

This is the landmark ethnobotanical book by L.M.S. Curtin, who learned herbal medicine firsthand from Spanish and Native American folk healers, midwives, and elders. Revised and up-dated by eminent herbalist Michael Moore, this is a fascinating and useful guide for anyone interested in traditional healing methods.

Go to: Purba or Allergy Cuisine

Adam's Navel: A Natural and Cultural History of the Human Form

Author: Michael Sims

In this amusing and brilliantly conceived book, Michael Sims introduces you to your body. Moving from head to toe, Sims blends cultural history with evolutionary theory to produce a wonderfully original narrative in which he analyzes the visible parts of the body. In this fascinating brew of science and storytelling, readers encounter not only accessible explanations of the mechanics of their anatomy, but also the layers of mythology, religious lore, history, Darwinian theory, and popular culture that have helped to shape our understanding of any given body part. A titillating and unique book, Adam's Navel is learned and entertaining, a marvelous lens through which to study the form we all inhabit-but may not really understand.

The New York Times

This is an entertaining, witty and erudite jackdaw's nest of a book. Sims seems not only to have read everything, the trivial as well as the lofty, but to have remembered all of it. The range of reference is dizzying. If at times he sounds like the worst bore in the bar, he will quickly re-grab the reader's flagging attention with some new bizarre fact or fragment of arcana. — John Banville

The Washington Post

A quite remarkable compendium of fact, fantasy, myth and personal musings on the topic of the human body.—Judith Warner

Publishers Weekly

Sims's scattered thoughts while lying flat on his back, recovering from surgery on a dislocated cervical disc, were the origins of this delightful tour of our various body parts, from head to toe. It focuses on the outer body, and there's plenty to dwell upon with regard to eyes and ears and even the belly button. (The book's title derives from a centuries-old debate over whether Adam and Eve had navels since, not having emerged from a womb, they had no umbilical cord.) After an overture considering the skin, the book explores the head, the arms and torso, and the lower extremities (including genitals), each with its own set of colorful expressions and artistic interpretations. There's an entertaining fact on nearly every page, covering a wide range of subjects, from why human hair appears to grow after death to what French kissing was called in France (they considered it Italian). Historical sources reveal the roots of Barbie and Charles Atlas and the damage a lifetime of trumpet playing did to Louis Armstrong's lips, with some figures-including Charles Darwin and 19th-century criminologist Cesare Lombroso, who claimed he could identify the physical characteristics of the criminal classes-coming in for regular attention. Sims (Darwin's Orchestra: An Almanac of Nature in History and the Arts) marshals his disparate stories and facts into a cohesive whole with frequent humorous asides and poetic waxings. It all adds up to a rollicking "fantastic voyage" over the surface of the body. 15 line illus. not seen by PW. (On sale July 28) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Sims (Darwin's Orchestra), who has written about science, culture, and the arts for various publications, here systematically assesses the exterior parts of the human form from head to toe, starting with the head and hair, then moving to the face, eyes, ears, nose, lips, and so forth. He reviews the etymology of the words we use to name the parts of the body; explores the history, mythology, and social lore associated with each body part; and cites references to body parts in literature and popular culture. The book is certainly entertaining but ultimately not much more; it includes little scientific examination and little about cultures beyond the United States and Western Europe. Recommended for large public libraries.-Michael D. Cramer, Schwarz BioSciences, RTP, NC Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A lighthearted exploration of the human body, drawing on myth, religion, art, pop culture, history, biology, and any other -ology that suits the purpose here: to delight, astound, and inform. After opening with an overture to the skin, journalist Sims (Darwin's Orchestra, not reviewed) divides the body into three regions: head and face, arms and torso, and lastly (and rather oddly), genitals and legs. For each part he entwines physiology and culture, elucidating how a part functions, what it has come to mean, how it has entered our language and literature. Anecdotes abound. The examination of hair covers not just its structure but its symbolic power as displayed by Samson, Rastafarian dreadlocks, Veronica Lake's peekaboo hairstyle, its use in witchcraft, and its treatment in etiquette guides. The mouth leads Sims into dissertations on the smile and the kiss, tales of Louis Armstrong's painfully split lips, and the roles of the tongue in tasting and talking. From his chapter on the hand, we learn about the evolution of the handshake and the many ways in which the thumb turns up in figures of speech, with some fingerprinting history and palm-reading lore thrown in. Bellybutton lint, navel-gazing, and controversy over the proper depiction of the bellies of Adam and Eve are considered in the chapter on navels. And so it goes, as Sims works his way from top to toe. His route need not be the one taken by the reader, however, for this can be opened at any page, so densely packed with fascinating information that it is probably best read in small chunks. Choice tidbits include the fact that the Komachi Hair Company in Japan sells a pubic wig called the Night Flower, that certain chimpanzees holdhands and kiss, or that Houdini could pick a lock with his toes. Sources include Seinfeld episodes, Michelangelo's paintings, and the writings of Stephen Jay Gould. Great fun. Agent: Heide Lange/Sanford J. Greenburger

Table of Contents:

	Introduction: The Form Complete	1
	Overture: Skin Deep	9
Pt. 1	Headquarters
1	The Not-Quite-Naked Ape	21
2	Face-to-Face	44
3	The Vigilant Eye	56
4	Lend Me Your Ears	80
5	A Ridiculous Organ	94
6	The Archaic Smile	102
Pt. 2	The Weight of the World
7	Arms and the Man	137
8	The Monkey's Paw	147
9	Madonna del Latte	187
10	Adam's Navel	213
Pt. 3	A Leg to Stand On
11	Privy Members	229
12	Our Steed the Leg	269
	Acknowledgments	311
	Selected Bibliography and Further Reading	315
	Index	328