Contents Sociology, Genetics, Social Mobility and Lifestyle -- The Sociological Perspective -- Postmodernity and Sociology -- Sociological Approaches to Health and Illness -- Political Economy and Marxist Approaches -- Parsonian Sociology of Health -- Foucault's Sociology of Health -- Feminist Approaches -- Bringing the Approaches Together -- The Social Construction of Medical Knowledge -- Making Reality Problematic: The Problem of the Medical Model of Disease -- Medical Knowledge Mediates Social Relations -- Masturbatory Insanity -- Hysteria -- The Technical Realm of Medical Practice -- Medical Technology and Social Relations -- The Sociology of Medical Knowledge -- Fleck and Representations -- Fleck's Sociology of Medical Knowledge -- Syphilis -- Anatomical Drawings -- Fleck, Foucault and Kuhn -- Applying Fleck -- The Development of the Sociology of Health -- The Relationship Between Sociology and Medicine -- Medical Bias in the Sociology of Health -- Challenging Medicine -- Social Aspects of Disease -- The Critique of the Medical Model -- Key Concepts in the Sociology of Health -- The Concept of Medicalization -- Disease: Nature or Society -- Medicalization and Women -- The Social Functions of Medical Knowledge and Practice -- The Development of Medicalization -- Case Study: Gambling -- Case Study: Alcoholism -- Developments in the Medical Profession -- Characteristics of the Medicalization of Society -- Case Study: Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia and the Medicalization of the Classroom -- Assessing Medicalization.
Abstract "This book demonstrates that disease is socially produced and distributed, arguing that becoming sick and unhealthy is not merely the result of individual misfortune or an accident of nature, it is a consequence of the social, political and economic organization of society."