The Burden of Disease and the Changing Task of Medicine

Abstract

The apparent similarity to today’s Journal, however, obscures a fundamental discontinuity (1812a, b, c; see box). Disease has changed since 1812. People have different diseases, doctors hold different ideas about those diseases, and diseases carry different meanings in society. To understand the material and conceptual transformations of disease over the past 200 years, one must explore the incontrovertibly social nature of disease.