This essay discusses the anthropological studies on body and illness from the way they relate to biological knowledges in the scientific field of Health. Anthropological research implies an attitude towards these knowledges of such an order that the way it places itself before them turns to be an epistemological problem, defining the status of the anthropological knowledge in this field marked by the hegemony of the biological sciences. From this point of view, two trends are distinguished: Medical Anthropology, imbedded in the logic of biomedical knowledge, and Anthropology of Health, whose way of using the notion of culture aims at another epistemological reference, pointing out the effective anthropological contribution to this field, which supposes, in itself, being apart from the significant references that support the bio-medicine.
Body; Health and illness; Anthropology of health; Biomedicine