h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You say "medicine has played a major role in quelling many diseases in modern society" but I've seen the opinion somewhere, possibly in Clive Ponting's "Green History of the World" or one of Richard Dawkins's books, that medicine has had a minor role in disease eradication, the major factor being that better nourishment and cleaner water gradually became widely available in the West over the last century.

Hi Recumbentman,

Thanks for the information. I would agree with you that increased access to clean water and better nutrition has a very sigificant bearing on human health, and could well be the biggest influence on the size, longevity and wellbeing of the population. However, I don't think we can completely relegate medicine to a very minor role. The discovery of vaccination has succeeded in eradicating smallpox from the world, and controlling many childhood diseases such as measles and rubella; for decades, antibiotics have had a major impact on curing bacterially based diseases. TB, Bubonic plague, and leprosy are not commonplace in developed societies; AIDS can be controlled with the right drugs and many forms of cancers can be cured. These were all commonplace killer diseases in our societies up to a few decades ago. The situation in poorer countries is a different situation entirely however, and in many cases medicine really does play a bit-part role in combatting preventable disease.

On a point on semantics - I tend to overuse the word "significant", so the word "major" was used here. I see them as somewhat interchangeable, but I can see that not everybody would agree!

Woodpigeon

OK, I'd agree that medicines are significant; I was voicing a caveat against the medicocracy.

Your comments are much appreciated - so far the response I have got back from people is really interesting. The forums are opening up a number of different avenues of enquiry.