I struggle to understand much of Michel Foucault’s writing. But in his book The Birth of the Clinic he couldn’t be clearer, nor more relevant to the current NHS crisis. He writes (quoting Lanthenas 1792): “Meanwhile, the poor, subjected to the despotism of the rich and of their kings, know only taxes that reduce them to penury, scarcity that benefits only the profiteers, and unhealthy housing that forces them ‘either to refrain from raising families or to produce weak, miserable creatures’.”
He then adds: “The first task of the doctor is therefore political: the struggle against disease must begin with a war against bad government.” Spot on. As were the all letters you published on this matter on 31 August.
Richard Crosher
Eyam, Derbyshire
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