The terms “health” and “illness” denote a variety of conditions—individual and institutional—that are variously perceived and understood from one culture to another, as well as within cultures. Common to all is a perception of health as a sense of well-being—physical, mental, social, and societal—and of illness as a lack thereof.

Common to all is also the premium placed on health, however defined. In the ancient Greek and Roman worlds, where illness often led to poverty or an early death, health was a supreme good. In the Hippocratic oath, to w…