In these pages I will try to convince you that diseases are ideas. You may think of them as scientific puzzles, or as frightening scourges, or as slow, painful torments. I do not want to dissuade you from those views, but I hope you will also see how they can be ideas influenced by the tastes and preoccupations of society. The history of disease, then, is an exercise in intellectual history, intimately related to culture and philosophy of knowledge in any time or place.

In this first chapter, we will examine generaldefinitionsof disease, looking for what characteristics are...

Does the reduction of an emotion to a material thing – be it anatomical or chemical – allow that emotion to become a disease? This question has been asked many times before. Something measurable can easily be transformed into an ‘objective’ sign that can help to turn a simple trait into a disease. The process is simplified if we already harbour concerns about that trait. And, as we saw in the last chapter, disease status may afford certain advantages: it eases the burden of responsibility for those concerned – making them ‘innocent victims,’ ‘sufferers,’ or ‘patients,’ rather than ‘bad actors,’ ‘criminals,’ or ‘sinners.’...

The liver is a majestic organ – stolidly culinary, anatomically obscure, and magically indispensable (plate 3.1). We know it has something to do with digestion, drinking, and blood. In Quebec, ‘le foie’ substitutes for the gallbladder; in France, ‘une crise de foie’ is a metaphor for general disarray. The history of liver disease could follow many avenues; in this chapter, we will focus on just one: hepatitis. Following the report of audience participation, we will quickly review the long trajectory of hepatitis from the elegant descriptions of the ancients to the recognition and rise of hepatitis C in our own time....