This book aims to provide the historical context necessary to understanding the concept of 'fetishism' and offers an overview of the ideologies, prejudices, and critical senses that shaped the Western observer's view of otherness and of his own world.

In the current era, evidence-based medicine and various supporting technologies dominate everyday clinical practice, according to a disease-centred, as opposed to patient-centred, approach. They have obviously improved the clinical management of diseases and it is therefore unreasonable to think of a medicine in which they are not considered fundamental. In fact, the strength of the new medicine should be to adapt scientific knowledge to a specific clinical case.This book therefore looks at the prospect of a new 'person' centred medicine, which stands alongside the 'disease' and 'patient'...