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Article: The Hot and the Cold: Ills of Humans and Maize in Native Mexico.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- June 22, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Hot and the Cold: Ills of Humans and Maize in Native Mexico. By Jacques M. Chevalier and AndrOs Sanchez Bain. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. Pp. xxii, 301. $65.00.)
Folk medical practices as far apart as China, the Mediterranean, and Latin America share a common belief that human health depends on balancing the hot and cold properties found within all foods. Yet contrary to the tenets of classical Greek humoralism, Jacques Chevalier and Andres Sanchez Bain propose a unique Mexican model based not on a simple equilibrium of temperature but rather on cyclical daily movements within a life-long trajectory of heliotropic growth. By combining ...