This article deals with the relationships between culture and medicine, and the great spread of alternative medicine in present days. It intends to explain this spread in a sociological approach, trying to advance two basic hypothesis: the first one concerns the present double crisis in health and medicine, and the second one concerns the search for a new rationale in health and care by both patients and therapysts in our contemporary society. It seems to exist a clear cultural lag between cultural changes in practises and representations in health, healing and care and the direction of medical progress.
Culture; medicine; medicine alternative