TY - JOUR T1 - Medication, Medication JF - British Journal of General Practice JO - Br J Gen Pract SP - 451 LP - 451 DO - 10.3399/bjgp18X698909 VL - 68 IS - 675 AU - Roger Jones Y1 - 2018/10/01 UR - http://bjgp.org/content/68/675/451.abstract N2 - I don’t know the demography of Poldark viewers, but I’m happy to admit that it includes me — and my wife. There is always much to learn from the goings on at Nampara and Trenwith. Captain Ross’s great friend Dr Dwight Enys and the dreadful Dr Choake represent the opposite poles of diagnosis and treatment: the biopsychosocial at the Enys end, and the cupping, purging, and bleeding quackery peddled by Choake at the other. The yin and yang of medicine, which can still easily be traced in the diagnostic and therapeutic dilemmas we face in practice today. Pre-modern medicine was all about diagnosis and prognosis, with most treatments being useless, or dangerous, or both. Modern medicine heralded our triumph over disease, with escalating patient expectations — a pill for every ill, ‘something can be done, surely’. In this … ER -