The Limits of Medicine: How Science Shapes Our Hope for the Cure

ISBN: 0226302075

Author: Golub, Edward S.

Condition: New

Edward Golub, distinguished researcher and former professor of immunology, shows thatmajor advances in medicine are caused by changes in the way scientists describe disease.Bleeding, sweating, and other treatments we consider barbaric were standard treatments forcenturies because they conformed to a conception of disease shared by patients and doctors.Scientific breakthroughs in the understanding of disease in the nineteenth century transformedtreatment and the goals of medicine. Golub argues that the ongoing revolution in moleculargenetics has opened the door to the "biology of complexity," again transforming our view ofdisease. This thought-provoking, timely book reveals a crucial but overlooked role of sciencein medicine, and offers a new vision for the goals of both science and medicine as we enter thetwenty-first century.