ABSTRACT
Health' is difficult to define and measure. Individuals know when they feel well or ill, but perceptions of health change over a lifetime; they also vary between generations as well as between individuals or groups at any one time. Even within the relatively short compass of the last hundred years, ideas about health have changed. Notions of basic minimum standards of housing and working conditions are significantly higher, and we all expect more of health services. The way in which social relationships affect our health is the subject of this chapter. The approach of this chapter means that many of the conventional 'history of medicine' subjects, such as the history of the medical and nursing professions, medical institutions, health policies, diseases and how medical knowledge has been applied to them, are only dealt with in passing, if at all. In 1986 the Health Education Council (HEC) commissioned an update of the Black Report.
