In this wide-reaching abecedarium, doctor and poet Iain Bamforth dissects the conflict of values embodied in what we call medicine-never entirely a science and no longer quite the art it used to be. Bamforth brings to bear his experience of medicine from around the world, from the hightech American Hospital of Paris to community health centres of Papua, along with his engaging interest in the stranger manifestations of medical matters in relation to art, literature and culture. Drawing on the lives and ideas of some of Europe's most celebrated writers, from Auden to Zola with stop-offs at the likes of Darwin, Kafka, Orwell, Proustand Weil along the way, Bamforth offers insightful and witty diagnoses of the culture of medicine in the modern age.