Patrice Pinell is Directeur de Recherche at the Institut National de la Recherche Médical (INSERM). He is an historian and sociologist of medicine, and has worked on topics such as the medicalization of school failures (Un siécle d'éches scolaires), the anti cancer war (Naissance d'un Fléau), the AIDS movement in France (Un épidémie politique), and the history of Muscular Dystrophy.

• 1. A Fatal and Incurable Disease 2. The First Successes in Treatment 3. Academicism and Marginality 4. War and the Birth of the Anti-Cancer League 5. The Beginnings of a Policy for the Fight Against Cancer 6. First Contradictions, First Reorganisations 7. The Turning Point of Serious Medicine 8. Between Science and Charity, the Question of Incurables 9. Publicity, Education, Supervision 10. A Modern Illness