Health and medicine in urban society: the social construction and fetishism of health.

Describes the manner in which the conceptualisation of health has changed, as systematic imperatives at work under capitalism shape the meaning of health and thereby limit possible policy responses. The first half of the paper shows how notions of 'health' have broadened over the past two centuries from preoccupation with purely physical considerations to the incorporation of mental health and social elements. The second half of the paper attempts to get behind the apparent progress in conceptualisation, to explain why a particularly narrow view of health still prevails as a major influence in provision of health care. Health care is seen largely as the technical practice of medical treatment on a fetishised version of medicine as a commodity. This is itself an outcome of the nature of capitalist society. -from Author