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  • Title: [Medical self-help in the writings of Ulrich Bräker (1735-1798): the cultural and social resources of the "poor man of Tockenburg" analyzed with Pierre Bourdieu's capital concept].
    Author: Hoffmann S.
    Journal: Wurzbg Medizinhist Mitt; 2006; 25():19-41. PubMed ID: 17333855.
    Abstract:
    Living as a poor pietist spinner, weaver and cotton trader in the rural Toggenburg area in Eastern Switzerland in late eighteenth-century, self-help was central to Ulrich Bräker's (1735-1798) reaction towards illness. Two initial examples exemplify this central position of self-help: Bräker's cure from migraine in the year of 1784 and a quantitative analysis of his diaries. Based on the journals (which he maintained between 1768 and 1798) and Bräker's autobiography this article scrutinizes the resources of self-help amongst the rural and poor population in the late eighteenth century. Methodologically, I am applying Pierre Bourdieu's capital theory to the analysis of Bräker's writings. The paper first elaborates how self-help, i.e. self-treatment, drew upon a rich, vivid, and at times conflicting stock of "cultural capital" acquired in upbringing and through tradition, through a large scale of educated medical literature, and by personal experience. With regard to "social capital" it is then shown how Bräker at times provided and achieved assistance within various direct or indirect, pre-existing or specifically on the purpose of self-help established relations (i.e. among family members, relatives, neighbors, friends and patrons, as well as acquaintances) as social resources. Finally the article demonstrates the interaction of self- and help from outside on multiple levels (either in the form of medical assistance or of poor relief).
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