Perspectives on Culture

“No one knows the value of good health until it is lost,” wrote Jan Kochanow­ski, the most renowned Polish poet, centuries ago. There is something deeply symbolic in the fact that this well-known verse from the epigram Na zdrowie (To Health) has become a proverbial expression, frequently quoted and recalled not only by scholars and enthusiasts of Old Polish literature. This is hardly surprising, as health and illness belong to the most universal existential universal human experiences. For this reason, medical issues can be examined from many different perspectives, including though the lens of their interdependencies and cultural contexts. Medical knowledge, therapeutic standards, medications and treatments used, as well as the social role and position of medical professionals, are all elements of a cultural reality specific both to a given place and to a particular moment in history.