Susan Sontag's book

Below, are excerpts from Wiki about the book, which I would like to get my hands on.

Synopsis

Illness as Metaphor served as a way for Susan Sontag to express her opinions on the use of metaphors in order to refer to illnesses, with her main focuses being tuberculosis and cancer. The book contrasts the view points and metaphors associated with each disease. Tuberculosis was seen as a creative disease , leading to healthy people even wanting to look as if they were ill with the disease. However, lack of improvement from tuberculosis was usually seen as lack of passion in the individual. Tuberculosis was even seen as a sign of punishment by some religions, such as Christianity, leading the afflicted they deserved their ailment.^[2]

Sontag then made the comparison between the metaphors used to describe tuberculosis and cancer, with cancer being defined as a disease that afflicts people who lack passion, sensuality, and those who repress their feelings. Sontag also mentioned how multiple studies have found a link between depression and people afflicted with cancer, which she argues is just a sign of the times and not a reason for the disease, since in previous times physicians found that cancer patients suffered from hyperactivity and hypersensitivity, a sign of their time.^[2]

In the last chapter, Sontag argues that society's disease metaphors cause patients to feel as if society is against them. Her final argument is that metaphors are not useful for patients, since metaphors make patients feel as if their illness is due to their feelings, rather than lack of effective treatment.^[2] The most effective way of thinking about illness would be to avoid metaphorical thinking, and focus on only the physical components and treatment.^[3]