This survey explores the historical interaction of people,
disease and health care, set in context of societies and their
beliefs. Brevity compels me to narrow my focus to Western
medicine – unique in being the only tradition which has
succeeded in globalizing itself. Emphasizing change over
continuity, I tell my story with as much narrative detail as
space allows: disease (Chapter 1); healers in their various
incarnations (Chapter 2); the investigation of the body
(Chapter 3); the modern biomedical sciences pioneered in the
laboratory and the consequent biomedical model of disease
(Chapter 4); therapeutics, especially in the scientific age
(Chapter 5); surgery (Chapter 6); and that key medical
institution, the hospital (Chapter 7). The concluding discussion
(Chapter 8) assesses the wider socio-political aspects and
implications of modern medicine.