OO WH WIN III I WMH ITION I IN I OOO OOO OOOO OOO III II IN A MILITT I INTIMI II IN HEHE ECO OO OO OOOOOO OOO OOO OOOOOO OOO OO HHHHHH IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
R E A TI C V E N O CATI E DU TABLE OF Contents Introduction 4 Discovering Germs Developing Drugs 6 The Microscope Sheds New Light 9 Centuries of Syringes 14 Taking the Fight Inward 16 Longer Lives and Better Health 22 A Medical Mistake 26 Cells and Small Surgeons 28 The Transplant Age Begins 31 The Controversy of Cloning 33 Science Fiction to Medical Fact 36 Wells Foreshadows Genetic Experiments 39 Pasteur’s Germ-Killing Process 40 Glossary 44 Selected Bibliography 46 Web Sites 46 Index 47
WINTRODUCTION hat if you could get a medical checkup without visiting a clinic Imagine simply touching your finger to a small device that draws a tiny amount of blood and promptly runs 2,000 different tests The device sends the results to a computer which sorts through a vast amount of information about your blood organs genes and the way in which the environment is affecting your body The results are e-mailed to you and your doctor Checkup complete Next the doctor looks at the data from your blood to see whether you are at risk for certain health problems Then he or she might prescribe medicine to help prevent these conditions from developing Such a medical checkup seems far-fetched today but as technology improves we might indeed be able to undergo exams that are that quick and thorough Throughout history doctors and scientists have steadily improved medical treatments from killing germs and developing disease-fighting drugs to performing life saving surgery A century ago most people probably would not have believed that doctors would ever be able to transplant organs such as kidneys hearts and livers from one person to another But the knowledge necessary for these surgeries accumulated quickly during the 20th century suggesting the likelihood of more great leaps in the next century Although we’ll have to settle for traditional office visits for a while a future of personalized medicine in which a patient receives treatment according to the data provided by his or her own blood awaits 4
Medical experts predict a future in which doctors will be able to read a person’s cells illustrated above and DNA illustrated right to better anticipate problems
