The Crisis of Medicine or the Crisis of Antimedicine?

NOTE: This was the first of three lectures given by Michel Foucault on social medicine in October 1974 at the Institute of Social Medicine, Biomedical Center, of the State University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It was originally published in Portuguese translation as “Crisis de un modelo en la medicina?”, Revista centroamericana de Ciencas de la Salud, No 3, January-April 1976, pp. 197-209; and in Spanish as “La crisis de la medicina o la crisis de la antimedicina”, Educacion Medica y Salud, Vol 10 No 2, 1976, pp. 152-70. The version in Dits et ecrits, (Paris: Gallimard), vol III, pp. 40-58, is a retranslation of the Portuguese back into French. We have translated this article from Spanish and thank PAHO Publications for their permission to publish it. We have also compared it to the French translation by Dominique Reynie.