Healing Threads

This work looks at the whole body of traditional medicine in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, giving both a general historical background and a wide variety of cures. While it tells the story of a concept of healing and healers that has survived from ancient to quite recent times, it also sheds light on the Celtic view of life which once pervaded the whole of the British Islands and large parts of mainland Europe - for example, the important patronage afforded by clan chiefs to their doctors and other learned orders during the Middle Ages. Based on extensive research, it is written more for the general reader, to acquaint them with their heritage, than for the specialist.