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Medicalisation has been an important concept in sociological discussions of medicine since its adoption by medical sociologists in the early 1970s. Yet it has been criticised by some sociologists, in part because it seems too negative about medicine, and modified or replaced by others with concepts deemed more relevant like biomedicalisation and pharmaceuticalisation. My aim in this paper is to reassess the concept and consider whether it still has value in exploring significant aspects of the role of medicine in present-day society. I start with an archaeology of the concept's development and the different ways it has been used. This covers some familiar ground but is essential to the main task: examining criticisms of the concept and assessing its value. I conclude that the concept continues to have a crucial and productive place in sociological analyses of medicine and that the process of medicalisation is still a key feature of late-modern social life and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores two themes that had a significant place in Durkheim's Division of Labor: the idea that people's needs and wants vary across epoches and cultures, and the conception of societies as systems. The first leads to a rejection of efficiency as the primary driving force behind advances in the division of labor. Considering power in addition to efficiency, but also the complex conditions of trust and meaning, leads into questions of interdependence and systems analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]