Should you see a doctor? Here is the critical diagnosis of established medicine, its ethics and power. A fascinating history of the healing arts is documented from ancient times to the advance of contemporary scientific medicine. The facts of “medical progress” are fever-charted, in a succinct and amusing way, which allows readers access to a matter of life and death. What we are shown, in the passage from earliest medical treatment to the “modern miracles’ of chemotherapy, is the assembling of a powerful medical establishment, with exclusive hegemony over questions of health on a mass, and now even a global, scale. Two main currents of the medical mass industry are observed: the “free enterprise” corporative system developed in the U.S. and its apparent social alternative in Britain, the National Health Service. Both are scrutinized for real achievements, paradoxes, and faults. Criticisms of the giant systems, from the various alternative political, feminist, holistic, and Third World standpoints are usefully summarized. “Medicine for Beginners” is controversial, fun, and a first-rate illustrated guide to the ailments of modern medicine.