ABSTRACT
The traditional view was that illness is due to infectious or other biological sources, and could sometimes be cured by medicine or operations. Certain complaints were later thought to be ‘psychosomatic’ – headaches and ulcers, for example. It was then discovered that heart disease, and later cancer, were also like this, and it is now realised that all illnesses have psychological as well as physical causes, and are partly due to stresses of various kinds.
