Summary
Contents
This book provides a clear, focused road map to the study of the body in society. It defines, explains and applies core topics relating to the human body demonstrating how we approach it as a social phenomenon.
Each concept: Includes an easy to understand definition; Provides real-world examples; Gives suggestions for further reading; Is carefully cross-referenced to other related concepts
Written to meet the needs of the modern student this book offers the basic materials, tools and guidance needed study and write about the body.
Medicine and Science
Definition Medicine is the field of knowledge that is applied to disease, illness and infirmity in the human body. Historically, healing has been practised by a variety of professionals in a number of systems, all of which except the increasingly dominant biomedical-scientific approach are now patronizingly relegated to the status of ‘traditional’. Science, as commonly understood, is the pursuit of ‘truths’ through the formulation of hypotheses that are tested against the empirical observation of the natural world. Medicine is often thought of as scientific, which it was not always, and even today diagnosis and treatment can often be seen more as an ‘art’ than as a pure science.
It is hard to over-estimate just how much the developed world's (and increasingly the ...
