LOSS OF PURPOSE
Lewis Thomas’ autobiography, The Youngest Science: Notes of a Medicine Watcher (Viking, 1983), provides a poignant example of such an isolation of information. One day in the late 1930’s, while working as a junior resident in one of Boston’s largest hospitals, Thomas learned of an interesting case from a colleague. A young musician had been admitted that morning with a history of chills and fever during the previous week. The patient’s blood samples revealed malaria, a disease so unusual in Boston that many on the staff took specimens for further study. As the day wore on, a growing number of physicians and medical students came to the patient’s bedside to observe this remarkable case for themselves. But all this interest didn’t help the patient. The young man became increasingly drowsy as clumps of infected cells blocked more and more of his brains blood vessels. He fell into a deep coma, and by evening he was dead. Silently, the house physician left…
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