(Studies in Social Medicine.) By Chris Feudtner. 290 pp., illustrated. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 2003. $29.95. ISBN 0-8078-2791-6.
What has been the impact of medical care on health over time?To answer that long-standing and still troubling question, ChrisFeudtner has given us a term to use: bittersweet. Examiningthe history of insulin therapy, Feudtner describes what he callsthe transformation of illness. The idea is simple enough, thoughit has not been stated so clearly and compellingly before now.Marvelous new therapeutic techniques often do not conquer oreradicate diseases but, instead, transform them. The introductionof insulin in 1922 transformed the acute, rapidly fatal courseof a diabetic coma into a chronic illness that could be . . . [Full Text of this Article]
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