Book Reviews together with a consideration of the important similarities and common ground it shares with medical sociology, its sister discipline. They argue cogently for the data and models of the latter to be taken into account by anthropologists interested in the social and cultural dimensions of health and disease. Their basic anthropological tenets are first the "adaptive" nature of health-related behaviour, with the latter as a rational response to the known causes of disease. Second,

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... y wish to promote the comparative method of anthropology for investigating the structure and dynamaics of health behaviour, by the use of a cross-cultural perspective. This book should be of great interest to those concerned with the history of disease and health and to practitioners handling both, but the sociological jargon will unfortunately deter some. However, its wide eclectic approach, its lively style, and the excellent bibliography compensate to some degree.