ABSTRACT
Ivan Illich’s attack on modern medicine, Medical Nemesis, appeared in 1974, famously opening with the statement: “The medical establishment has become a major threat to health.” This chapter examines the major themes of the book, and asks whether events since its publication have added weight to Illich’s thesis or diminished the book’s importance. Illich was born in Vienna in 1926 to a Roman Catholic Croatian aristocrat father and a German mother of Sephardi Jewish origin (Hartch 2015). His parents included among their friends the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, the theologian Jacques Maritain, and the philosopher Rudolf Steiner. Illich was classified ‘half-Aryan’ as long as his father was alive but, after his death in 1943, the family fled to Italy. Illich initially studied histology and crystallography at the University of Florence, mainly to obtain an identity card under a false name. After the Second World War, he returned to Austria, and enrolled at the University of Salzburg to study history, gaining a PhD. While working on his doctoral research he returned to Italy and began studies for the priesthood at the Gregorian University in Rome. He was ordained in 1951.
