Edited by B Ars. Kugler, 2001, €28, pp 194. ISBN 90 6299 183 1

I read this book shortly after rereading Confessions of a Medicine Man by Alfred Tauber. (MIT Press 1999). As both these books are concerned with searching for the meaning of medicine in a world where scientific and technical goals predominate, it was inevitable that I should compare them. What intrigued me was how two books with a similar purpose could be so different.

Tauber is an American physician and philosopher whose book is a personal quest to seek out a medical ethos on which to base his practice. He therefore approaches his task biographically, relating a series of stories illustrative of medical issues that he has found troublesome during his medical career. He then uses these to explore those philosophical …