Editorials

Death undefeated

Back in 1974, when I wrote Medical Nemesis, I could speak about the "medicalisation" of death.¹ The western art of dying--an outcome of Europe's Christianisation--had ceded to guaranteed terminal care. I coined the term in reference to a medical establishment that had assumed the functions of a dominant church and whose symbolic effects included the shaping of people's beliefs and perceptions, needs and claims. What professionals saw as the ultimate therapeutic failure, laymen feared as limited financial coverage. It was then plausible to use the term "iatrogenesis" not just for symptomatic side effects suffered by individuals in their encounter with physicians, drugs, or hospitals, but also for the superstitious reshaping of society and culture through the internalisation of medicine's myths.

Two decades later, I would have to write a very different book. Before, I used medicine to illustrate a general feature of major institutions . . . [Full text of this article]

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Medical kindness

Louis S Goldstein
bmj.com, 11 Aug 2000 [Full text]