Beneath the Surface. What Do People Really Do When They Are Ill?

Abstract

What is health? What is disease? What does a normal person do when he or she is ill? How does it feel to live in a human body? Many people – and even some scientists – believe that the answers to these questions are obvious, and universal. However the Medical Anthropologists at Heidelberg‘s South Asia Institute scratch beneath the surface to reveal ideas about health and disease that can vary greatly between times and cultures.