Volume 23, Number 14 · September 16, 1976
Rx for Illich
By Lewis Thomas
Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health
by Ivan Illich
Pantheon, 294 pp., $8.95
As a physician, I've had a hard time with Medical Nemesis, but not, as you might be thinking, because of wincing or hurt feelings at all the harsh things Ivan Illich wants to say about contemporary medicine. Indeed, most of his arguments, taken singly, are not all that bad, or all that wrong. It is possible to read the whole book through, nodding much of the time in general agreement with one point after another. The hard part comes when it is finished, thousand-odd footnotes and all, and you try to figure out what Illich wants to have done about it.
Review, 2373 words
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