A classic comparative study of medicine and national culture, Medicine and Culture shows us that while doctors regard themselves as servants of science, they are often prisoners of custom.

My conviction is that the matters addressed in this volume are of transcendental importance if we are to face up to the challenges of the 1990s and beyond. How, for instance, are we to cope with a truly ecological approach to public health and all its concomitant changes of risk groups worldwide unless there is a full appre ciation of the popUlation perspective throughout the health establishment? The global village has achieved a measure of interdependence requiring recognition by all concerned with the health of both individuals and communities that there is an urgent need to share our...