Sander L. Gilman, whose pioneering work on the history of stereotypes has become a model for scholars in many fields, here examines the images that society creates of disease and its victims. In fourteen essays linked by a concern with the depiction of illness in culture and medicine, Gilman addresses such diverse topics as the "mad" patient of the Middle Ages, art created by the mentally ill, the interaction between Western and Chinese medical traditions, and the representation of the AIDS patient.