Ecce homo

Abstract

By the end of the twentieth century, the figure of Man presented a very different picture compared to the inert anatomical creature of the nineteenth century, and so did the logic of medicine and pattern of health care. No doubt, other registers can tell a parallel story of Man’s creation but few can embrace the brief journey so comprehensively. What other theory or practice can encompass the cells and tissues of the body’s depths, the mental processes of the active mind, important institutional configurations, as well as the ecological concerns of late twentieth and early twenty-first century society? It is as if illness provides a magical prism through which to observe both the broad structures and the fine detail of the many changes in the identity of Man over nearly two centuries.