In this volume a series of co-ordinated studies demonstrates that examining time as a key component of the social organization of health provides a new and revealing perspective on the sociology of medicine and the individual experience of health and illness.Individual contributors focus on varying aspects of the management of time by patient, doctor and institution, and on the wider social context of time concerns of family, industry and polity. A recurrent element is the importance of time within the relationship between health, medicine and work. The contrasts and contradictions between the individual's experience of bodily time and the medical exigencies of clock and calendar are explored.