Profession of Medicine: A Study of the Sociology of Applied knowledge is a book by medical sociologist Eliot Freidson published in 1970.

It received the Sorokin Award from the American Sociological Association for most outstanding contribution to scholarship and has been translated into four languages.

[2]: 144  Bosks draws comparison of with the ideas in the book to Max Weber's analysis on the role of technical rationality and profession expertise on decision-making in a democratic society.

[3]: 289  Michael Calnon argues that the books sociological perspective is similar to that of structural pluralism where the medical profession is seen as a mediator between the state and the public, with the benefit of increased trust and reduced governmental costs.

He distinguishes professions that help people solve problems, including lawyers and doctors, from those that pursue, such as academic scholars.

[4]: 6  In Zande medicine, the role of the doctor was to be a third party who established the causes of illness, as well as "leechcraft" that consisted of administering drugs, and the supposed removing "magical pellets" embedded in the body.

The Zande people believed that witchcraft was an innate property of individuals passed hereditarily but potentially inactive.