"This book maps the emergence of the figure of the modern 'person' from its anatomical origins in the nineteenth century to its psychological and reflexive individuality in the early twenty-first century. Using medical texts as a means of accessing contemporary perceptions of the patient - for example, through changing conceptualizations of illnesses, modes of treatment, techniques of examination and patterns of health care - the text provides a history of the process of identity construction. The result is an account of the invention of Man - physical, mental and behavioural - over the last century or so, together with an examination of the changing ways in which knowledge of Man's identity has become established."--Jacket.