A few passages from Limits to Medicine, Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health by Ivan Illich, 1974: "A world of optimal and widespread health is obvious

A few passages from Limits to Medicine, Medical Nemesis: The Expropriation of Health by Ivan Illich, 1974: "A world of optimal and widespread health is obviously a world of minimal and only occasional medical intervention. Healthy people are those who live in healthy homes, on a healthy diet, in an environment equally fit for birth, growth, work, healing, and dying; they are sustained by a culture that enhances the conscious acceptance of limits to population, of aging, of incomplete recovery and ever-imminent death." “Man's consciously lived fragility, individuality and relatedness make the experience of pain, of sickness and of death an integral part of his life. The ability to cope with this trio autonomously is fundamental to his health. As he becomes dependent on the management of his intimacy, he renounces his autonomy and his health must decline.” “The more time, toil, and sacrifice spent by a population in producing medicine as a commodity, the larger will be the by-product, namely, the fallacy that society has a supply of health locked away which can be mined and marketed.” "Health designates a process of adaptation. It is not the result of instinct, but of an autonomous yet culturally shaped reaction to socially created reality. It designates the ability to adapt to changing environments, to growing up and to aging, to healing when damaged, to suffering and to peaceful expectation of death. Health embraces the future as well, and therefore includes anguish and the inner resources to live with it". ""Health," after all, is simply an everyday word that is used to designate the intensity with which individuals cope with their internal states and their environmental conditions. The society which can reduce professional intervention to the minimum will provide the best conditions for health."