At the time of his death in 1995, Georges Canguilhem was a highly
respected historian of science and medicine, whose engagement with
questions of normality, the ideologization of scientific thought, and
the conceptual history of biology had marked the thought of philosophers
such as Michel Foucault, Louis Althusser, Pierre Bourdieu, and Gilles
Deleuze.
This collection of short, incisive, and highly accessible essays on the
major concepts of modern medicine shows Canguilhem at the peak of his
use of historical practice for philosophical engagement. In order to
elaborate a philosophy of medicine, Canguilhem examines paramount
problems such as the definition and uses of health, the decline of the
Hippocratic understanding of nature, the experience of disease, the
limits of psychology in medicine, myths and realities of therapeutic
practices, the difference between cure and healing, the organism's
self-regulation, and medical metaphors linking the organism to society.
Writings on Medicine is at once an excellent introduction to
Canguilhem's work and a forceful, insightful, and accessible engagement
with elemental concepts in medicine. The book is certain to leave its
imprint on anthropology, history, philosophy, bioethics, and the social
studies of medicine.