The secularization of health affairs.

: Medicine, in Western Civilization, traces its ancestry to the School of Hippocrates on the Isle of Cos in the 5th Century B.C. Its history is intertwined with the Judeo-Christian ethic and manifests a significant ecclesiastical heritage. In the role of healer, the physician has a spiritual as well as a scientific character. Since World War II, health care has experienced vast changes in its cultural, economic, political, social, and technoscientific dimensions. This transition from the temple to the marketplace, characterized as The Secularization of Health Affairs has pervasive societal implications.