Cover Page -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgements -- I Introduction -- 1 Medical sociology -- 2 Religion and medicine: from sin to sickness -- II Concepts of Disease and Sickness -- 3 On being sick -- 4 Madness and psychiatry (by Colin Samson) -- 5 Women's complaints: patriarchy and illness -- 6 Aging, dying and death -- III Social Organization of Medical Power -- 7 Professions, knowledge and power -- 8 Medical bureaucracies: the hospital, the clinic and modern society -- 9 Capitalism, class and illness -- 10 Comparative health systems: the globalization of medical power -- IV Conclusion -- 11 The regulation of bodies -- 12 Risk society and the new regime of disease -- 13 The expanding field of the sociology of the body -- References -- Index.