Abstract
Medical anthropological research in the last twenty years has shown clearly that medicine is a cultural system which can be studied in the same manner as kinship, religion, politics, and so forth. In this paper, basic medical anthropological notions about illness experience are presented, and the theoretical development of analytical frameworks for discourse of patients, their family members, and health practitioners is outlined, with additional commentaries by the author, in order to make it clear the relevance of these notions and frameworks for the modern biomedically-oriented medical practice. Fmphasized throughout the paper are the significance of the meaning of illness experience for the patients, and that helping them cope with their suffering is a primary function of medicine.
