TODAY’S physicians live in two worlds. On the one hand they work in the wonderland of modern medicine, a challenging and gratifying world of achievement. On the other hand they live each day cognizant that their ability to treat patients with the best techniques available is in great jeopardy.
Reflect for a moment on the advances that have given our society a quality of health care unimaginable in previous times. The miraculous age of medicine dawned while I was still in medical school, with the development of penicillin, tetracycline, and broad-spectrum antibiotics. As a result of these and of various immunological discoveries many infectious diseases have been brought under control. Smallpox has been eradicated worldwide, and cases of diphtheria, polio, and whooping cough have been virtually eliminated in the United States. The incidence in the United States of typhoid fever has been reduced by 95.3 per cent since 1940, measles by 93.8 per cent, and tuberculosis by 77.2 per cent. More than any other single factor, pharmaceuticals, with their ability to control infectious diseases, have been responsible for our dramatic increase in life expectancy, from 54 years in 1920 to over 75 years today. And the discoveries continue: of new medications achieving worldwide acceptance over the past 15 years, nearly half were developed here.
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