[State models (utopias) and sociology of medicine]

Social science was well developed at the end of the 18th century, but the theory or rather the methodology of sociology became a source of investigation only in the 19th century. The aspects of society were already studied in ancient times, though--since this term was not known--they thought of an omnipotent state as the only structure of human coexistence. Their judgement about the human community--what we call society today--were expressed inside the political science. In our times the investigation of sociology was primarily interested in what a real society should be, in contradiction to the philosophers of the ancient world, the Fathers of the Church in the Middle Ages and the modern natural-lawyers, who were discussing about an ideal constitutional form. They did not describe the veritable society and its occurrences, but showed a model of social conditions to their contemporaries, which had been imagined or contemplated suitable by them. Nowadays it has gradually been accepted in modern medicine that a substantial proportion in the etiology of certain diseases and the conditions of recovery have social origin. As social circumstances are natural elements of human beings, social existence impresses all functions of human body. The practical problems of prevention and therapy of diseases beside social relevances represent a special social aspect for medicine.