This book of readings offers compelling evidence that even in this age of advanced medical technology and large-scale bureaucracy, the essence of diagnosis, therapy, and management of illness continues to reside in the doctor-patient relationship. It brings together 17 articles published from 1927 to 1978 dealing with the sociological and cultural aspects of clinical and bedside medicine.The articles are grouped into five parts. These cover the ground rules for the doctor-patient relationship, the dynamics of the interchange, the nature of the communication, barriers to communication, case studies, and visions of what the ideal relationship might be. The editor has added an extensive introduction that situates the articles and reviews in the current state of research in the field.Authors included are Emily M. Ahern, Arlene K. Daniels, Milton S. Davis, Sherman Eisenthal, Joan P. Emerson, Vida Francis, Arlene Frank, Eliot Freidson, L. J. Henderson, Marc H. Hollender, Arthur Kleinman, Barbara M. Korsch, Aaron Lazare, John B. McKinlay, Marie J. Morris, Talcott Parsons, Francis W Peabody, Thomas J. Scheff, Thomas S. Szasz, Howard Waitzkin, Harry A. Wilmer, and Irving Kenneth Zola.John D. Stoeckle, M.D., is Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Primary Care Program at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is coauthor, with George Abbott White, of Plain Pictures of Plain Doctoring: Vernacular Expression in New Deal Medicine and Photography (MIT Press 1985).