When Alexandra Todd's 21-year-old son is diagnosed with cancer, the family embarks on an odyssey that ultimately steers an expansive course between the gleaming technologies of traditional Western medicine and the gentle arts of alternative healing.

Like her popular Appalachian Spring, Marcia Bonta's new book offers a day-by-day account of the changing world of nature in the mountains of central Pennsylvania. This time she chronicles the beauties of the autumn months as she walks the familiar roads and trails of her 500-acre mountain-top farm, noting the minute transformations of the season as well as the more dramatic ones. But her quiet sojourn in the natural world is shattered by the intrusion of a lumberman who insists upon clear-cutting a neighboring property. The massive bulldozers and skidders crush every tree and shrub, weed, and wildflower, leaving only rubble in their wake. The Bontas become involved in a lawsuit challenging this violation of the land they love and seeking to protect their own property from the effects of the logging. "Autumn is a bittersweet time," Bonta writes, "a season of good-byes, when, after the flaming leaves fall and start the inevitable process of decay, we are left with only the bare bones of nature." Fleeing from the whine of chain saws and the crash of falling trees, she roams the mountain-top, watching wild turkeys forage in the field, flocks of migrating birds feast on wild grapes, does and bucks eye each other in their mating ritual. But she can never completely evade the insistent question: What is the relationship between humans and nature? Does ownership give one the right to do as one pleases with the land and all the flora and fauna living on it? Does the natural world exists solely to satisfy mankind’s desire for profit? The answer is not simple; it cannot be drawn in winter’s black and white. But the issues must be of concern to every thoughtful person. Marcia Bonta’s Appalachian Autumn offers a new voice in the ongoing debate.

This pioneering work by internationally known physician Dr. James W. Anderson is a quick and easy guide to a healthier lifestyle. Breaking the steps to healthful living into manageable units, Dr. Anderson shows how making the right choices in diet, exercise and relaxation can improve health and reduce risks of major disease.Dr. Anderson's High-Fiber Fitness Plan is an essential handbook for those who want a hassle-free way to fitness and health. It has an enclosed spiral binding that lies flat on the counter with a wipeable cover and plenty of space for notes. The first half of the book is filled with suggestions for health-promoting foods and practices and packed with workbook exercises that allow users to personalize the plan. Practical chapters address topics including: using dietary fiber to fight disease, developing a lifetime plan, losing weight quickly & healthfully, cooking easily, dining outThe second half of the book is filled with more than 150 recipes, most of which take less than fifteen minutes to prepare. Try "Gingered Fruit Dip" on apple wedges and kiwi slices for breakfast or "Unfried Beans" for lunch; savor "Orange Muffins" for a snack or "Homestyle Brisket" for dinner. Offerings include: appetizers, beverages, snacks; fruits and desserts; fish, chicken, and meat; vegetables; salads; soups and sandwiches."I can do that!" sections help readers study their own habits and incorporate positive changes into daily life. Each chapter includes a "chapter action plan" to help readers put new information to use. A handy chart lists calories and fat content for restaurant foods.Through the use of "Jim's Diary," Dr. Anderson charts his own progress and improvement, and, through the success stories of those who have tried his diet and found their lives changed, he provides inspiration. His gentle, humorous style makes self-improvement nearly painless.

Social change has placed new demands on the practice of medicine, altering almost every aspect of patient care relationships. Just as medicine was encouraged to embrace the biological sciences some 100 years ago, recent directives indicate the importance of the social sciences in understanding biomedical practice. Humanistic challenges call for changes in curative and technological imperatives. In this book, social scientists contribute to such challenges by using social evidence to indicate appropriate new goals for health care in a changing environment.This book was designed to stimulate and challenge all those concerned with the human interactions that constitute medical practice. To encompass a wide range of topics, the authors include researchers; practicing physicians from the specialties of family, general, geriatric, pediatric, and oncological medicine; social and behavioral scientists; and public health representatives. Cutting across disciplinary boundaries, they explore the ethical, economic, and social aspects of patient care.These essays draw on past studies of the patient-doctor relationship and generate new and important questions. They address social behavior in patient care as a way to approach theoretical issues pertinent to the social and medical sciences. The authors also use social variables to study patient care and suggest new areas of sociomedical inquiry and new approaches to medical practice, education, and research.Its cross-disciplinary approach and jargon-free writing make this book an important and accessible tool for physician, scholar, and student.

A visual index of photographs for identifying charred remains of roots and tubers from archaeological sites in Europe and the Near East. Although often present in archaeological deposits the charred remains of vegetative organs, roots, tubers, rhizomes and corns are rarely, or erratically, identified. This manual covers Europe and the Near East.

The public health movement in the South began in the wake of a yellow fever epidemic that devastated the lower Mississippi Valley in 1878--a disaster that caused 20,000 deaths and financial losses of nearly $200 million. The full scale of the epidemic and the tentative, troubled southern response to it are for the first time fully examined by John Ellis in this new book.At the national level, southern congressional leaders fought to establish a strong federal health agency, but they were defeated by the young American Public Health Association, which defended states' rights. Local responses and results were mixed. In New Orleans, business and professional men, reacting to the denunciation of the city as the nation's pesthole, organized in 1879 to improve drainage, garbage disposal, and water supplies through voluntary subscription. Their achievements were of necessity modest.In Memphis--the city hardest hit by the epidemic--a new municipal government in 1879 helped form the first regional health organization and during the 1880s led the nation in sanitary improvements. In Atlanta, though it largely escaped the epidemic, the Constitution and some citizens called for health reform. Ironically their voices were drowned out by ritual invocation of local health mythology and by unabashed exploitation of the stigma of pestilence attached to New Orleans and Memphis. By 1890 Atlanta rivaled Charleston and Richmond for primacy in black mortality rates.That the public health movement met with only limited success Ellis attributes to the prevailing atmosphere of opportunistic greed, overwhelming debt, economic instability, and inordinate political corruption. But the effort to combat a terrifying disease not fully understood did eventually produce changes and the vastly improved health systems of today.

Marcia Bonta is a naturalist-writer who has lived on a 500-acre mountain-top farm in central Pennsylvania for twenty years. Appalachian Spring is her personal account of that glorious spectacle - the coming of the spring to the woods and fields of Appalachia.

This report deals with biological evidence from two sites within the area of the Roman civil town or colonia close to the River Ouse and the probable Roman river crossing. Both sites were extensively sampled and the material has provided the first opportunity in York to examine richly organic waterlogged Roman deposits formed on surfaces rather than as the fills of wells or other subsurface features.

This volume is the first to explore broadly many important theoretical and applied issues concerning the mental health of Appalachians. The authors -- anthropologists, psychologists, social workers and others -- overturn many assumptions held by earlier writers, who have tended to see Appalachia and its people as being dominated by a culture of poverty.While the heterogeneity of the region is acknowledged in the diversity of sub-areas and populations discussed, dominant themes emerge concerning Appalachia as a whole. The result of the authors' varied approaches is a cumulative portrait of a strong regional culture with native support systems based on family, community, and religion.Some of the contributors examine therapeutic approaches, including family therapy, that consider the implications of the cultural context. Others explore the impact of Appalachian culture on the impact of Appalachian culture on the development of mental health problems and coping skills and the resulting potential for conflict between Appalachian clients and non-Appalachian health providers. Still others examine cultural considerations in therapeutic encounters and mental health service delivery. The book is rich in case studies and empirical data. The practical, applied nature of the essays will enhance their value for practitioners seeking ways to improve mental health care in the region.

From the tiny shrew to the black bear, Pennsylvania's hills and valleys are teeming with sixty-three species of wild mammals. Many of these animals are rarely seen except when pursued by an interested biologist, mammologist, or nature photographer. Now, with the publication of this book, student, scholar, and nature lover alike will have a ready reference to distinguish between a deer mouse and a white-footed mouse, to identify raccoon tracks, and to learn about Pennsylvania's other inhabitants. An attractive backpack-size volume, written in lively prose, the Guide to the Mammals of Pennsylvania opens with a short introduction to Pennsylvania's environment and the characteristics defining a mammal. The bulk of the book consists of species accounts of the mammals grouped into families and orders. Each account includes a short list of data, a Pennsylvania range map, a North American range map, and a narrative of the physical, ecological, and behavioral characteristics of the species.Exciting photographs of each of the species in its natural habitat, 17 in color, and drawings of animal tracks are especially useful for identification, and a glossary and a bibliography provide definitions and references for the serious reader. Naturalists, whether amateur or professional, will find the book useful in the field; it will be an indispensable tool in the classroom.

Coal, the nation's most abundant fossil fuel and the only one that is exported, represents one of our most valuable natural resources. This study undertakes a thorough review of the economics of the Appalachian coal industry. It establishes, first of all, the international framework within which the American and the Appalachian coal industry function. It next examines the underlying principles that govern the production of and the demand for coal. This demand is influenced not only by price but also by world politics, the economic well-being of dozens of countries, government regulation, and the availability of fuel substitutes. Included are a comprehensive treatment of the regulation of the industry, the effects of coal utilization on air quality, land reclamation, safety, transport, and legislation pertaining to port use.In conclusion, Harvey looks at the prospects for Appalachian coal, considering the impact of technologies such as fluidized bed combustion and coal-water slurry and the issue of energy policy and fuel alternatives. The picture that emerges is not unexpected -- an industry whose recovery and enduring health depend on resurgence of world and domestic economic activity, social and political stability, and government regulation.

Both strategic and economic considerations make desirable the development of alternatives to petroleum as a source of energy and chemicals. Alcohol is one such alternative, and the experience of Brazil, a world leader in its production, provides a unique contribution to industrial policy for other nations. This book will be a valuable reference for all those concerned with energy sources for the future.

Ronald C. Tobey provides a provocative analysis of the movement to establish a national science program in the early twentieth century. Led by several influential scientists, who had participated in centralized scientific enterprises during World War I, the new effort to conjoin science and society was an attempt to return to earlier progressive values with the hope of producing science for society's benefit. The movement was initially undermined by the new physics, and Einstein's theories of relativity, which shattered traditional views and alienated the American public. Nationalized research programs were tempered by the conservatism of corporate donors. Later, with the disintegration of progressivism, the gap between science and society made it impossible for the two cultures to unite.