By combining the geography of health, the geography of social phenomena, and changing conceptions of health and illness, it attempts to offer a radical and comprehensive review of medical geography and medicine in general. Looks at a review of literature and case studies on the location and distribution of health services in the National Health Service; follows this with an examination of conceptions of health and the nature of health care in traditional systems such as those in Sudan, Ghana, the Solomons, China, Japan, India, and among the Navahos in the US. Health care in advanced industrial societies is also included with sections on Australia, USA, Japan, Ireland, and the Soviet Union. Finally, provides directions for social geographical research, and repeats an underlying theme: that disciplinary boundaries may be an impediment to causal analysis of problems. Calls for a dialectical viewpoint of the relations between health and health and welfare provision as a whole, and society as a whole. -A.T.A.Learmonth