1. This essay was first presented at a session of the Eighth Annual Bioethics Retreat, 1996, Copper Mountain, Colorado. In addition to the helpful comments received from participants at that session, I am indebted to H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. and Edwin Wallace, IV for their critical comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this manuscript.
2. Caplan A. Does the philosophy of medicine exist? Theoretical Medicine 1992; 13(1): 67–77. Caplan rightly notes that reflection on concepts of health and disease are as close as one can get to a central, boundary-defining problem in the philosophy of medicine (p. 73).
3. Engelhardt H. The Foundations of Bioethics. 2nd Edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
4. Foucault M. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archeology of Medical Perception. Sheridan Smith AM, tr. New York: Vintage Books, 1975.
5. Temkin O. The Double Face of Janus and Other Essays in the History of Medicine Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977; esp. chs. 29–32.