The dominant "mechanistic" paradigm of modern western medicine was analysed from an anthropological point of view. Some critical comments on the positivistic posture which underlies this paradigm were made, as well as a historical overview of how it has developed (dominating medical perception of health, disease and therapeutics) up to its present crisis. An analysis of some "primitive" and "popular" medical systems showing how they incorporated social elements into strategies of treatment and cure was also made. It was emphasised that modern western medicine needs to recover its social and cultural dimensions in order to overcome its present crisis. In this sense, looking to history as well as to "primitive" and "popular" medical systems has the aim of contributing to this search.
Anthropology, medical; Medicine, traditional; History of medicine