ABSTRACT
That mice in the laboratory regularly succumb to disease in situations of apparent fear and frustration is not necessarily of relevance to man. In the end, man must be studied where he belongs – in society. This, of course, is a more complex task than running a laboratory experiment; and not surprisingly the greatest difficulty in sociological studies of disease in human populations to date has been methodoligical; because of this it is the dominant theme of the review. The sceptic has little difficulty in presenting alternative plausible interpretations of most published work, and practising doctors on the whole pay little serious attention to the possibility of social influences – at least with regard to the conditions covered by their own speciality. In spite of this I believe that it is reasonably clear that social processes play an important role in the aetiology of both physical and mental disease.
