Disease, the object of so much of medical practice, not only happens to human beings, it also assumes knowable forms through the discourses we construct around it. The contents of Fu-shih Lin's History of Disease started out as papers presented at a symposium held by Academia Sinica in 2000. The themes of the symposium were the nature and causes of epidemics, the effects of epidemics on human society and civilization, disease as a cultural or social construction, and the interpretation and cure of diseases. The thirteen papers included in this collection address these subjects.
