"In today's globalised world, it is increasingly important to understand the otherness of different societies and their beliefs, histories and practices. This book focuses on a burning cultural issue: how concepts and constructions of gender and sexuality impact upon health, medicine and healthcare. Starting from the premise that health is neither a universal nor a unitary concept, it offers a series of interdisciplinary analyses of what sickness and well-being have been, are and can be." "The originality of this book is its cross-cultural and trans-historical approach. Bringing together specially commissioned work by both major critical voices and young scholars in fields ranging from anthropology and art history to philosophy, political science and sociology, this volume challenges many traditional assumptions about gender, medicine and healthcare." "The wide-ranging introduction provides a historical and theoretical framework for what is defined here as Cultural Medicine, whilst 15 original essays demonstrate from different perspectives that health is not merely a physiological and medical issue, but also a cultural and ethical one." "This book will be of interest to the general reader as well as to students of all levels, to teachers of a wide range of disciplines, and to specialist researchers of cultural studies and of medicine."--Jacket.