Medicine

One step at a time, through leaps of progress and hurdles of devastating disappointment, humanity's medical knowledge has moved forward from a time when even the slightest cut held the threat of infection and death, when the flow of blood within the body was a mystery, and "cells" were not even a concept, and when the appearance of a simple instrument allowing a physician to listen to the beat of a diseased heart was a profound advance.

Perhaps you’ve heard rumors about an herbal supplement that acts as the Fountain of Youth, improves your mood, and helps you lose weight. Maybe you’ve considered trying hypnosis to stop smoking, but you’ve heard it might be just a waste of money. You may be curious about how getting stuck with many sharp needles can actually alleviate pain and stress—when it seems like it should do the opposite.

In today's era of modern Western medicine, organ transplants are routine, and daily headlines about the mysteries of DNA and the human genome promise that the secrets of life itself are tantalizingly within our reach. Yet to reach this point took thousands of years.