Afterword: Cultural Differences in Medicine

Abstract

It is a sad privilege to add these brief reflections as a bookend to the late Roy Porter’s characteristically generous and exuberant foreword, which will be among the very last of his many publications. The conference on which this volume is based was memorable in large measure for his participation — not only his paper, a survey of recent work on the history of the body, which has since appeared elsewhere,¹ but also his always illuminating and often provocative comments on the proceedings. Those contributions showed his customary versatility. Having come prepared to deplore the excesses of postmodernism and the misuses of theory, and finding a gathering of scholars similarly inclined (the ghost of Foucault barely stirred, and the theorist most often cited was Norbert Elias), he rapidly shifted tacks and pleaded for the considered use of theory.