Health and Illness

Allopathic medicine

the prevailing form of healing in modern society, whereby the method of treating a disease endeavours to produce a condition of the body different from, opposite to or incompatible with, the condition essential to the disease.

Homeopathic medicine

the system of treating the disease by administering, in minute quantities, substances which would, if given in larger doses to a healthy person, produce symptoms similar to those of the disease.

Epidemiology

the study of the causes and distribution of disease.

latrogenic

describes that which creates disease and illness as it provides medical assistance. In other words, this is a disease and death resulting from medical treatment.

Intersubjectivity (also referred to as reflexivity)

the social scientist is a participant in the very social reality he or she is studying; therefore, it is impossible to gather unbiased data.

Macro analysis

focuses on systems, as in both the structural funtionalist and conflict theory traditions.

Micro analysis

focuses on the individual mind, self, interaction and meaning, as in the symbolic interactionist tradition.

Medicalization

a process whereby more and more of everyday life has come under medical dominion, influence and control.

Negative case analysis

a mode of proof which requires that for a hypothesis to be confirmed, every single instance of the phenomenon must support the hypothesis.

Participant observation

a methodological approach in which the researcher shares in the activities of the people being studied in order to understand experiences in their lives.

Positivism

positivists sociologists assume that social facts are real and external and can be studied objectively.

Positivist methodology

is based in the method of the physical sciences. Data, assumed to be objected is collected from surveys,
questionnaires, interviews and experiments.

Qualitative research

 emphasizes in-depth, detailed descriptive accounts of social actions occurring at a specific place and time.

Quantitative research

usually involves statistical measurements of various kinds which are cross-tabulated with one another to explain the variability of social events.

Social facts

these include such things as gender, class, educational level, family type, marital status, age, rural/urban background, religious affiliation, religiosity, political ideology and the norms and customs of a society. Durkeim believed that the first rule of social analysis was to consider social facts as things that could be observed, measured and explained.

The sick role

defined by Talcott Parsons (1951) to account for the way society organizes behaviour around sickness. The definition includes two rights and two duties for the person assuming the sick role.

Verstehen

"empathetic understanding" is Weber's idea of the basic method of the social sciences.

Disease mongering

the creation of a new disease for the sake of profit

Evidence based medicine

medical practice based on published guidelines derived from meta-analyses of scientific research

Technological imperative

the tendency for new technologies to drive social and medical practice

Drapetomania

a disease defined as causing slaves to run away from their masters.