Response to James H. Maxwell's Essay, "The Iron Lung"

The iron lung was a temporizing-albeit practical and often valuable-device aimed not at the cause of disease, but at its results. We cannot wait for existing technologies in medicine to turn themselves into therapeutic insights: the cost would be too high and the risk too great. Rather, there is nothing else to rely on with confidence but basic research.

Author(s): Lewis Thomas

Read on JSTOR

Volume 64, Issue 1 (pages 30–33)
Published in 1986