Modos e modas da doen？a e do corpo

the present article aims at understanding the process of "social construction in health" bearing in mind that health has, along the history of mankind, been always considered a good. it has thus been of constant concern in that it becomes the generator of trends, modes of doing and existing, conflicts, dualities and social control. along that time health models were designed, interpreted and recreated when necessary, leading to a similar transformation process in the forms of feeling and acting of the users of the most varied health resources available. this is done within the relation between the "magic and the necessary" establishing between those who serve and who were served a relation also as magic as necessary which is intermediated by the body of those subjects, depositary of health and illness states. besides the transformation process of mentalities also taken into consideration are the processes of construction, deconstruction and evolution of the imaginary and the social representations experienced by the subjects and their bodies. the evolution of knowledge and technical and scientific advances are also focused as model and communicative sources in the sense of dictating rules to the body that humanity socially bears in this century.