["Perfect virtue": a cross-cultural study of health care in Europe and China].

For the past 2.500 years, the civilizations of Europe and China have integrated heterogeneous therapeutic systems. This paper discusses the circumstances that account for a) basic paradigmatic changes in health care and b) acceptance of mutually antagonistic health care systems within one society. A survey of European and Chinese medical history suggests that conceptualizations of disease and health, prevention and therapy, reflect the political and socio-economic environment affecting a given social group. As emerging concepts of threats, defenses and treatments relating to the social organism arise, they are projected onto the human organism and give rise to new notions of disease. While there are always those who insist on the exclusive validity of a specific theory or treatment, such claims have never been realistic. Both in Europe and in China, most people patronize various treatments, which rest on different and even contradictory conceptualizations of the organism, health and therapy.