An introduction to medical sociology and an assessment of its significance for social theory and the social sciences. The author considers the ways in which different social theorists have interpreted the experience of health and disease, and the social relations and power structures involved in medical practice. The text examines health as an aspect of social action, and looks at the problem of health at three levels - the individual, the social and the societal. Among the perspectives analyzed are Parson's view of the "sick role" and the patient's relation to society; Foucault's critique of medical models of madness and sexuality; and Marxist and feminist debates on the contribution of Beck to the sociological understanding of environmental pollution and hazard in the politics of health. This new edition includes a revised chapter on mental health and new chapters on the sociology of the body and on the relationship between health and risk in contemporary societies.