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For better or worse, the subfield moved forward as “medical anthropology.” This was accompanied by a number of “What is Medical Anthropology?” essays. Howard Stein in 1980 recognized this “cri du coeur […as] a recurrent, quasi-ritualized annual event” (p. 18). While in its initial phase, generalist–specialist and applied–theoretical tensions had prominence, now the tension between cultural and biological priorities took precedence.

The global reach of British social anthropology notwithstanding – for instance, it was seen in Australian Shirley Lindenbaum’s important work on kuru disease in the early 1960s and the “epidemiology of social relations” she created to illuminate kuru (Anderson 2018) – medical anthropology’s official initial emergence as a named subdiscipline was largely fostered by culturally oriented scholars (see Paul 1963; Polgar 1962). This included those affiliated with the “culture and personality” school. Thus, early reviews of the field’s progress (e.g., Colson and Selby 1974; Fabrega 1971; Scotch 1963) highlighted medical anthropology’s relevance in psychiatry and related areas, their distinct focus on “nurture” over “nature” reflecting the strength of cultural determinism in mid-twentieth-century US anthropology.