Rise And Fall Of Modern Medicine

Bol Partner

The achievements of medicine in the post-war period rank as one of the most sustained epochs of human endeavour since the Renaissance. So dramatic and profound has been the assault on disease that it is now almost impossible to imagine the world of just fifty years ago when there were no drugs for most killer diseases. These achievements have had a profoundly beneficial effect on people's lives as well as being a liberating force, freeing them from the fear of illness or untimely death, permitting them for the first time in human history to live out their natural lifespans, while significantly ameliorating the chronic disabilities associated with ageing. The scope of medicine is immeasurably greater than it was fifty years ago, but the optimism generated by those achievements seems to have evaporated. Medicine is doing better but feeling worse. THE RISE AND FALL OF MODERN MEDICINE presents for the first time a comprehensive and searching appraisal of the science, philosophy and politics of modern medicine.

Bol

The medical achievements of the post-war years rank as one of the supreme epochs of human endeavour. Advances in surgical technique, new ideas about the nature of disease and huge innovations in drug manufacture vanquished most common causes of early death, But, since the mid-1970s the rate of development has slowed, and the future of medicine is uncertain. How has this happened? James Le Fanu's hugely acclaimed survey of the 'twelve definitive moments' of modern medicine and the intellectual vacuum which followed them has been fully revised and updated for this edition. The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine is both riveting drama and a clarion call for change.