today characterized by medical pluralism, in which people select eclectically among various healing traditions, broadly divided among scientific and traditional or social medicine, as they seek improved health.

In pulling together his analysis, Sowell draws on general histories of medicine, histories (and historical documents) of Colombian and Ecuadorian medicine, medical anthropology, and, for the analysis of Perdomo himself, nineteenth-century newspapers, testimonials about Perdomo's healing powers, and a book written by Perdomo about Catholicism. The testimonials in particular offer a glimpse into the world of the mid-nineteenth century, in which sick people sought various kinds of relief from their illnesses, often in vain. One of the attractions of Perdomo's healing was that he was rumored to undertake surgery painlessly, and with little bleeding. Given the conditions of nineteenth-century scientific medicine,this was a remarkable accomplishment, and seems to have been due to the indigenous plant preparations that made up his medical kit. Testimonials and newspaper articles provide vivid accounts of Perdomo's visits to towns and cities in the Colombian and Ecuadorian Andes, which bring Sowell's analysis to life. At the same time, the way that the author contextualizes Perdomo's work within the colonial medical spectrum makes this a book that will be useful for teaching purposes. On another level, Sowell's frank disclosure of the difficulties he encountered in developing an analysis around the intriguing, but ultimately sparse, newspaper accounts of the conflicts over Perdomo's visit to Bogota, will be useful for teaching graduate students who are facing the task of developing their own analyses from data that are