The book provides a broad overview of the way medicine is experienced, perceived and socially constructed in western societies. Drawing on the tradition of the sociology of health and illness, Deborah Lupton directs readers to an understanding of medicine, health care, illness and disease from a sociocultural perspective. At a time of increasing disillusionment with scientific medicine and the mythology of the beneficent, god-like physician, there is also - paradoxically - a growing dependence on biomedicine to provide the answers to social as well as medical problems. This book illuminates why attitudes to medicine are characterized by such strong paradoxes, and why issues of disease, illness and the medical encounter are surrounded by controversy, conflict, power struggles and emotion.