Diseases in the ancient Greek world

Perhaps the best tribute I am in a position to make to Professor McKeown, who died in June of 1988, is simply to praise this, presumably his final book. I find that easy to do because it is obviously the product of deep reading and years of pondering, but I would like to take one step more. Thomas McKeown was a philosopher and a moralist, as well as a historian, of medicine. In an age when medical "miracles" are commonplace, he did not kneel before technology, but maintained and taught the ancient wisdom that the practice of medicine is as much ethical and philosophical as scientific. For instance, he repeated again and again that the "cure" for the maladies of poverty today is the same one that began to work in Great Britain 200 years ago, i.e., decent diet. A few magical clinics, an investment of a few millions in tomography X-ray machines, will not provide humanity a sufficiency of good food. For that you have to change society. Professor McKeown knew that; and I wish I had known him.