Key Takeaways:

• Critiques modern medicine as an institution that, beyond a certain point, produces iatrogenic illness, dependence, and loss of personal autonomy.
• Distinguishes between necessary, limited medical care and a “medicalized” society in which professionals define normality, risk, and acceptable behavior.
• Argues that industrial medicine can undermine communities’ self-reliance and individuals’ ability to cope with suffering, aging, and death on their own terms.
• Becomes a foundational text for later critiques of over-treatment, pharmaceuticalization, and the medical-industrial complex.