From the time of the ancients until almost the start of this century, physicians saw disease as an imbalance of the body's "humors." For two thousand years, bloodletting, sweating, herbs, and a warm bedside manner were therefore the only sensible treatments they had to offer to restore that balance. All that changed 150 years ago when science came to medicine.

It took the likes of Pasteur and others to realize that infectious diseases - diphtheria, TB, smallpox - were caused not by some vague humors, but by specific organisms. The real miracle in medicine, the author argues, was not the discovery of wonder drugs such as penicillin and insulin, but the revolution in the way we conceived of disease, which enabled researchers to look for specific cures.

At the beginning of this century, the average life expectancy was thirty years. Most people were swept away by infectious diseases before they reached old age. Today we can expect to live almost eighty years. Our chief scourges are the chronic diseases of an aging population: cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer's. Unlike infectious illness, however, these diseases don't have single, identifiable causes.

But, The Limits of Medicine argues, we are approaching them with the same mind-set and expectations we have for infectious diseases.

Dr. Golub, a distinguished researcher and former professor of immunology and microbiology, argues provocatively that we cannot cure today's health threats with the prevailing medical mentality. We need instead another scientific revolution in how we conceive of disease. Our new goal of medicine must be to extend health, not life span. High-tech solutions - whether for AIDS, cancer, or whatever the next horrifying scourge will be - are not inevitable.

The Limits of Medicine is an historical tour of how science revolutionized medicine. It shows the human side of science and its practitioners - the eccentrics and geniuses whose spectacular successes, humiliating failures, and necessary dead ends advanced the art of medicine. It demonstrates that the limits of medicine are conceptual, not technical.