Epilogue

Abstract

As these essays have shown, we live in the expectation of new technological breakthroughs in medicine that will occur on the basis of new biomedical knowledge. Such an understanding of reality has become a taken-for-granted element of the ways in which we live our lives. As a result, we do not often appreciate the extent to which it is bound to the post-Renaissance West's belief in progress. However, when we contrast it with periods in our past when we saw history as more cyclical, our character as a future-directed culture is more plain. We see ourselves on the ascending curve of ever-increasing knowledge and increasing technological powers. This general aspiration of Western intellectuals became a part of common biomedical expectations with new surgical techniques abetted by antiseptic techniques, the “miracle” breakthroughs of modern medicine with antibiotics, and the new computer-assisted modes of diagnosis and treatment that provide us with CAT-scanners and our contemporary intensive care units.