The role of medicine: Dream, mirage or nemesis?

The aims of this book are: (a) to examine the validity of a concept which is rarely stated explicitly but on which medical activities largely rest, namely that human health depends essentially on a mechanistic approach based on understanding of the structure and function of the body and of the disease processes that affect it; and (b) to consider the significance of the conclusions for medicine, particularly in the relation to health services, medical education, and medical research.

These themes are discussed in the two sections into which the book is divided, the first concerned with the determinants of health and the second with the role of medicine.