I. Diseases and their victims: -- The ancien regime of disease: epidemics -- From consumption to tuberculosis -- Registers of memory and forgetting -- The illnesses of modern life; -- II. Reading and interpreting disease: -- From the body horrible to the space of disease -- From causes to meaning; -- III. Identities of the sick: -- Fate or disease without the sick -- The burden of sin: sinners and penitents -- The damaged individual: the flawed body -- From inactivity to the right to illness -- Providers and receivers of care: medicine and the sick -- From self-help to the duty to be healthy -- Conclusion.