Limits to Medicine
Appearance
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Author | Ivan Illich |
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Language | English |
Published | 1975 |
Limits to Medicine, also known as Medical Nemesis, is a book by Ivan Illich, first published in 1975. Without defining what medicalisation is, Illich claimed that medicine had increasingly gained social control over people's lives, leading to iatrogenic effects, with physicians as the key players in the process.
Central Idea
[edit]The central idea of the book is that medicine - especially Western medicine - is not as good and effective as physicians make it out to be. It has its inherent weaknesses, which are often deliberately suppressed by the medical establishment. Consider the introduction of the book, which begins with this statement, "The medical establishment has become a major threat to health".[1][2][3][4][5][6]
See also
[edit]- David Horrobin
- David Cayley
- Nassim Nicholas Taleb - author of the book Antifragile (2012) which heavily leans into the term Iatrogenics
References
[edit]- ^ Killeen, Raymond N. F. (July 1976). "A Review of Illich's Medical Nemesis". Western Journal of Medicine. 125 (1): 67–69. ISSN 0093-0415. PMC 1237194. PMID 18747743.
- ^ O'Mahony, S. (June 2016). "Medical Nemesis 40 years on: the enduring legacy of Ivan Illich". The Journal of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 46 (2): 134–139. doi:10.4997/JRCPE.2016.214. ISSN 2042-8189. PMID 27929580.
- ^ Babich, Babette (January 2018). "Ivan Illich's Medical Nemesis and the 'age of the show': On the Expropriation of Death". Nursing Philosophy. 19 (1). doi:10.1111/nup.12187. ISSN 1466-769X. PMID 29271600.
- ^ Illich, I. (December 2003). "Medical nemesis*". Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. 57 (12): 919–922. doi:10.1136/jech.57.12.919. ISSN 0143-005X. PMC 1732343. PMID 14652247.
- ^ Horrobin, David F. (1980). Medical Hubris: A Reply to Ivan Illich. Eden Press. ISBN 978-0-88831-080-4.
- ^ Cayley, David (2021). Ivan Illich: An Intellectual Journey. Penn State Press. ISBN 978-0-271-08912-6.