Quality of life and medicine: a historical note

This paper analyses the historical origins of the concepts of welfare as a positive right and of quality of life. The latter has historical antecedents but has become important in the latter half of the twentieth century, owing to the conflict between consumer demands for medicine and constraints upon spending. It is argued that, beyond the immediate economic and utilitarian contexts, the concept of quality of life has the potential to promote individual liberty and a more subjectively-based approach to medicine.