The article traces a line from ancestors to the type of modern health scares that the profession should be attempting to understand and to reduce. Witchmania have their modern counterparts. Racial, religious, and political hatred; holistic medicine; newspaper astrologers; and faith healers are the ‘new addresses’ of these phenomena. There are three primary causes of these irrational beliefs: fear of death, discontent with toil, and ignorance of the future. These three factors, by impelling us to seek remedies for irremediable problem, bewildered us in a maze of madness and error. It is clear how this road could lead to anxieties over health. In the past, mass hysteria was blamed on demons, familiars, and curses. Today we blame invisible gases, viruses, and toxins.
