Framing Disease : Rutgers University Press : 9780813517575 : 0813517575 : 01 Mar 1992 : "In some ways disease does not exist until we have agreed that it does, by perceiving, naming, and responding to it, " writes Charles E. Rosenberg in his introduction to this stimulating set of essays. Disease is both a biological event and a social phenomenon. Patient, doctor, family, and social institutions?including employers, government, and insurance companies?all find ways to frame the biological event in terms that make sense to them and serve their own ends. Many diseases discussed here?endstage renal disease, rheumatic fever, parasitic infectious diseases, coronary thrombosis?came to be defined, redefined, and renamed over the course of several centuries. As these essays show, the concept of disease has also been used to frame culturally resonant behaviors: suicide, homosexuality, anorexia nervosa, chronic fatigue syndrome. Disease is also framed by public policy, as the cases of industria