ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the relative freedom with which human beings have been able to perceive health. This is a freedom that reflects a history of western medicine that has often privileged the patient viewpoint and still, in the early twenty-first century, frequently allows people to voice their subjective experiences of health and sickness. The likelihood of doubt emerging in this kind of context diminishes. Rather, a fairly simplistic narrative of sickness→recovery→health often appears to flourish. This narrative has the capacity to often seem completely trustworthy, and it can sometimes amaze us. This chapter touches on the history of the placebo, medical advertising, miracles and the development of MRI and fMRI. Sources include the work of William Cullen and Nicholas Jewson.
