Making Sense of Illness Science, Society and Disease

This 1998 book offers historical essays about how diseases change their meaning. Each of the diseases or etiologic hypotheses in this book has had a controversial and contested history: psychosomatic views of ulcerative colitis, twentieth-century chronic fatigue syndrome, Lyme disease, angina pectoris, risk factors for coronary heart disease, and the type A hypothesis. At the core of these controversies are disagreements among investigators, clinicians, and patients over the best way to deal with what individuals bring to disease. By juxtaposing the history of the different diseases, the author shows how values and interests have determined research programs, public health activities, clinical decisions, and the patient's experience of illness. The approach is novel in its interweaving of historical research and the clinical experiences of the author. It should appeal to an audience of physicians, policy makers, social scientists and the general reader interested in broad intellectual currents in modern medicine.

1. Introduction; 2. The rise and fall of the psychosomatic hypothesis in ulcerative colitis; 3. From myalgic encephalitis to yuppie flu: a history of chronic fatigue syndrome; 4. Lyme disease: the social construction of a new disease and its social consequences; 5. From the patient's angina pectoris to the cardiologist's coronary heart disease; 6. The social construction of coronary heart disease risk factors; 7. The rise and fall of the type A hypothesis; 8. Conclusion.

In this 1998 book Robert Aronowitz offers historical essays about how diseases change their meaning. By juxtaposing the history of different diseases, the author shows how values and interests have determined research programs, public health activities, clinical decisions, and the patient's experience of illness.