Abstract
The advance of medicine has been long and slow. As George Washington lay dying from a throat ailment, his physicians bled him occasionally to “relieve the body of foul humours” — actually draining away the very energy needed to survive. Just a few decades ago, before the discovery of penicillin, we were helpless against wave after wave of tuberculosis, typhoid, plague, smallpox, whopping cough, polio, and other horrible illnesses that swept through society at will. Today, less than 10% of deaths in modern nations are due to infectious disease, while the other 90% are the result of environment, genetics, and lifestyle.1
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Notes
Robert Charette, “Dying for Data,” IEEE Spectrum (October 2006) pp. 22–27.
Buchanan, From Chance to Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Stephen S. Hall, Merchants of Immortality (NY. Houghton-Mifflin, 2003 ).
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© 2008 William E. Halal
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Halal, W.E. (2008). Mastery Over Life: Promises and Perils of Biogenetics. In: Technology’s Promise. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230582538_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230582538_5
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