Amazon Healer: The Life and Times of an Urban Shaman

About this book

The work of Amazon folk healer don Hilde incorporates a modern spiritualistic perspective into the traditional healing arts of the region. Medical anthropologist Marlene Dobkin De Rios examines don Hilde's methods in relation to folk tradition and modern research on the immune system. She finds that many traditional techniques stimulate the production of endorphins-natural painkillers that stimulate the body's own healing powers.