The Mirage of Health

An exceptional book - plain, lucid, elegant, lively. It draws its facts and illustrates not only from the corpus of medicine but from authors from Lao-tzu to Proust. It is logical and persuasive... a confession of faith and humility by a great scientist. (Lancet) This book will be a treat for readers, and it will make them think. (Science) A learned, well-written, and delightful introduction to medicine as a social science. It must be read particularly by the new generation of doctors, the human biologists as yet unencumbered by the pile of facts and loose thinking that is curative medicine today. (Nature)