The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine Read online

  James Le Fanu contributes a twice-weekly column on medicine, science and social policy to the Sunday and Daily Telegraph. His articles and reviews have also appeared in the New Statesman, Spectator, GQ, the British Medical Journal and the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. He has also made original contributions to controversies concerning experiments on human embryos, environmentalism and the causes of disease. The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2001. His most recent book Why Us? How Science Rediscovered the Mystery of Ourselves was published jointly by HarperCollins in the UK and Random House in the United States in 2009. He is married to the publisher Juliet Annan and they live with their two children in South London.

  Praise for The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine

  ‘Excellent . . . As Le Fanu explains in a telling phrase, the human hip joint is more slippery than a skate sliding on ice. How could such a thing be made artificially? This is one of the fascinating “twelve definitive moments” that make up the first part of the book. Le Fanu describes them – from penicillin to heart surgery and the treatment of infertility – with just the right mixture of science, history and anecdote. The struggles, disappointments and fatal errors of these early pioneers are described with zest, authority and a special brand of wry humour . . . An endlessly fascinating read’

  MAX WILKINSON in the Financial Times

  ‘Le Fanu [is] one of today’s leading writers on medicine to the informed public. The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine is a substantial work (and very good value) for those with a fairly serious interest in health matters’

  HUGH FREEMAN in the Daily Telegraph

  ‘Stand by for a brilliant read. James Le Fanu’s massive book, bulging with juicy medical history and anecdotes, will set your heart palpitating and your blood pressure rising from the start. It is an absolute must-read for all people interested in medical matters, and particularly for those (like me) whom Le Fanu dubs The Worried Well, i.e. the ones who are “well” but “worried” we might not be . . . By reading Le Fanu’s book we will be made aware of the thrilling power of the scientific method and the manner in which it pushes the boundaries of knowledge, to thank our lucky stars for the leaps forward in medicine and to acknowledge the enormous limitations imposed by the inscrutable mysteries of biology’

  VAL HENNESSY in the Daily Mail

  ‘Recently writing a history of medicine from the Stone Age to New Age, I deeply regretted that there was no up-to-the-minute account of modern medicine which I could pillage. That book has now arrived . . . Its author, the distinguished medical journalist Dr James Le Fanu, writes with clarity and authority, and has the great knack of making even the most complex technical developments in immunology or embryology exciting and intelligible . . . You’ll find nowhere a better crafted and more expert account of how modern medicine helps ensure that the great majority of us live to a ripe old age . . . Erudite [and] absorbing’

  ROY PORTER in the Observer

  ‘[A] well written, fascinating and informative book, which should be read by anyone with an interest in contemporary medicine . . . Everyone will finish the book knowing much that he did not know before, and stimulated into thought about the future of medicine. At the very least, the reader will have a more realistic appreciation of the powers and limitations of medicine; and in an age of hysteria about the subject, that is no mean achievement’

  ANTHONY DANIELS in the Sunday Telegraph

  ‘This book is a major achievement. It will be a test of the state of modern medicine to see whether that achievement is acknowledged and The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine accorded the widespread discussion it deserves. It is a book that desperately needed to be written. And it is an indictment of the universities and medical schools that the job had to wait for the attentions of one of the country’s most gifted freelance intellectuals. The book succeeds at two levels. It is at the same time a thorough, scholarly and well-referenced text, and a clear, vivid and compelling narrative, accessible to the interested lay person’

  BRUCE CHARLTON in The Tablet

  ‘In this invaluable amalgam of human drama, vivid history, cutting-edge nous and old-fashioned polemic, Le Fanu issues an appeal to reason and calls for medicine to recover its sense of what it is for . . . The ambition of this, the first historical account of this period, is admirably justified throughout. Le Fanu communicates complex material in a clear and straightforward fashion while taking care, wearing his journalistic cap atop his white coat, never to let the scientific facts stand in the way of what is a rattling good story’

  ANDREW MACKENZIE in Scotland on Sunday

  ‘[Le Fanu’s] book, in many ways a history of medicine since 1935, is as lucid as it is comprehensive. In it, he comments that few doctors are intellectuals. He is an exception, but, even so, it is an easy and fascinating read, studded with little-known facts . . . His arguments develop slowly and clearly . . . I would recommend The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine. I found it informative and intriguing’

  THOMAS STUTTAFORD in the Literary Review

  ‘The skill [of medical journalism] is to write with humanity and objectivity, a dual responsibility brilliantly fulfilled by the author . . . This book is well worth reading just for the brilliant pen portraits of Le Fanu’s twelve definitive moments of medical advance. Some, like the discovery of penicillin, are well known, but even here the author has a way of encapsulation that is full of insights and unusual detail . . . It would be possible to close the book here, just over halfway through, and still feel you had had your money’s worth. But the challenge is in the second half, where three much hyped hopes for the future are brought down to earth . . . This excellent book has challenged many of my views’

  DAVID OWEN in the Spectator

  ‘[The first] part of the book makes a jolly good yarn. The tales are well told, and should be read by all [junior doctors] to give them some feeling of the excitement felt by their grandparents as major diseases that had seemed totally untreatable came under control. Seniors should read it too: they will be reminded of the great men who taught them . . . The second half of the book, concerning the fall of medicine, is more contentious though no less enjoyable for that’

  J. R. HAMPTON in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine

  ‘Le Fanu’s dozen vignettes [of the definitive moments of modern medicine] are excellently done . . . Le Fanu, a part-time practitioner, sounds just the sort of physician we would like to consult’

  DAVID SHARP in the New Statesman

  ‘Close on 500 pages of passionate criticism . . . Le Fanu’s accounts of the success stories of medical care are lively and well worth reading’

  D. J. WEATHERALL in the Times Higher Education Supplement

  ‘This well written, extremely readable, and thought-provoking book deserves to be widely read, especially by those in the establishment who would say he is wrong’

  ROB HENDRY in the British Journal of Medical Practice

  ‘Le Fanu’s The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine is the best book on the history of medicine I have ever read. Thoroughly fascinating, immensely readable. Deserves wide public attention’

  NORMAN F. CANTOR, Emeritus Professor of History, New York University

  ‘A compelling insider account that tries to determine, from the vantage point of the United Kingdom, why so few people are happy with the institution of medicine’

  IAIN BAMFORTH in the Times Literary Supplement

  ‘I enjoyed The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine, and I expect most doctors will also, possibly dipping into it (topics are well indexed), rather than reading from start to finish. Le Fanu’s “twelve definitive moments” are
a particular pleasure to read. Having practised through most of the years he covers, and having participated in or observed first-hand many of the events he recounts, his accounts of the serendipity, imagination, and luck that led to each are intriguing and informative . . . Le Fanu is a keen observer of the changing medical scene. He presents a wealth of interesting material and offers interpretations that, whether or not they agree, readers will find thought-provoking and well worth reading’

  JOHN BUNKER in the British Medical Journal

  THE

  RISE AND FALL

  OF

  MODERN MEDICINE

  James Le Fanu

  BASIC BOOKS

  A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  New York

  Copyright © 1999, 2012 by James Le Fanu

  Published by Basic Books,

  A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  First edition published in Great Britain in 1999 by Abacus, an imprint of Little, Brown

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10107.

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  Diagrams by Linda Payne

  Typeset in Bembo by M Rules

  A CIP catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

  LCCN: 2012946998

  ISBN: 978-0-465-05889-1 (e-book)

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For Frederick and Allegra

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  Preface to the Revised Edition

  Introduction

  A LENGTHY PROLOGUE: TWELVE DEFINITIVE MOMENTS

  1 1941: Penicillin

  2 1949: Cortisone

  3 1950: Streptomycin, Smoking and Sir Austin Bradford Hill

  4 1952: Chlorpromazine and the Revolution in Psychiatry

  5 1952: The Copenhagen Polio Epidemic and the Birth of Intensive Care

  6 1955: Open-Heart Surgery – The Last Frontier

  7 1961: New Hips for Old

  8 1963: Transplanting Kidneys

  9 1964: The Triumph of Prevention – The Case of Strokes

  10 1971: Curing Childhood Cancer

  11 1978: The First ‘Test-Tube’ Baby

  12 1984: Helicobacter – The Cause of Peptic Ulcer

  PART I: THE RISE

  1 Medicine’s Big Bang

  2 Clinical Science: A New Ideology for Medicine

  3 A Cornucopia of New Drugs

  4 Technology’s Triumphs

  5 The Mysteries of Biology

  PART II: THE END OF THE AGE OF OPTIMISM

  1 The Revolution Falters

  2 The Dearth of New Drugs

  3 Technology’s Failings

  4 The Clinical Scientist as an Endangered Species

  PART III: THE FALL

  1 The Brave New World of The New Genetics

  (i) The Beginning

  (ii) Genetic Engineering

  (iii) The New Eugenics

  (iv) Gene Therapy

  (v) The End

  2 Seduced by The Social Theory

  (i) The Beginning

  (ii) The Rise and Fall of Heart Disease

  (iii) Beyond Tobacco: Sir Richard Doll and the ‘Causes’ of Cancer

  (iv) Environmental Alarums

  (v) The End

  3 The Unsolved Problem: The Mysteries of Biology Revisited

  PART IV: THE RISE AND FALL: CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES

  1 Learning from the Past

  2 Looking to the Future

  EPILOGUE TO THE REVISED EDITION

  Epilogue

  Introduction: Ten Years On

  1 Doing More

  2 The New Genetics Triumphant – or Not

  3 Big Pharma Rules

  4 The Next Ten Years

  Appendix I: Rheumatology

  Appendix II: The Pharmacological Revolution in Psychiatry

  References

  Index

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The arduousness of writing has been more than compensated for by the privilege of meeting so many of those who participated in the great events recorded in this book. To them; to the sympathetic souls whose interest has been more important than they realise; to the librarians at the Royal Society of Medicine and the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine; to my wife Juliet; to my agent Caroline Dawnay, publishers Philippa Harrison and Richard Beswick and editors Andrew Gordon and Victoria Pepe; and to Vanessa Adams and Caroline Sherbrooke for their prodigious secretarial skills: my thanks.

  Dr Digby Anderson, Lord Annan, Bryan Appleyard, Mr John Ballantyne FRCS, Sir Douglas Black, Professor Nicholas Black, Sir Christopher Booth, Dr Thomas Boulton, Professor John Bunker, Dr Bruce Charlton, Mr Bill Cleland FRCS, Sir John Dacie, Dr Ann Dally, Dr Anthony Daniels, Professor Norman Dennis, Professor C. J. Dickinson, Sir Richard Doll, Professor Deborah Doniach, Professor Israel Doniach, Professor R. S. Downie, Sir John Ellis, Professor Peter Ellwood, Professor Renée Fox, Mr Michael Freeman FRCS, Professor David Galton, Dr John Glyn, Mr James Gow FRCS, Dr C. W. Haigh, Professor John Hampton, Dr Myles Harris, Sir Donald Harrison, Dr I. D. Hill, Professor A. V. Hoffbrand, Dr Arthur Holman, Mr John Hopewell FRCS, Dr David Horrobin, Professor Bryan Jennett, Professor Trevor Jones, Dr Michael Joseph, Dr Leo Kinlen, Dr Ghislaine Lawrence, Professor John Marshall, Dr William Marshall, Dr Robert Matthews, Professor James McCormick, Professor Kenneth Minogue, Dr G. Misiewicz, Professor John Moorehead, Mr E. P. O’Donoghue FRCS, Professor Peter Openshaw, Mr Nicholas Parkhouse FRCS, Professor Michael Patton, Sir Stanley Peart, Mr Elliot Philipp FRCS, Mr Michael Powell FRCS, Dr David Pyke, Mr Gordon Rees FRCS, Professor Jonathan Rees, Professor Lesley Rees, Dr Henry Rollin, Dr Jack Scannell, Dr Rupert Sheldrake, Professor Peter Skrabanek, Professor Alexander Spiers, Professor Gordon Stewart, Mr John Studd FRCOG, Professor Raymond Tallis, Dr Tilli Tansey, Dr Wendy Taylor, Professor Tom Treasure FRCS, Mr Patrick Trevor-Roper FRCS, Dr John Wade, Sir David Weatherall, Dr Mark Weatherall, Professor Simon Wesseley, Mr Adrian While FRCS, Dr Elizabeth Whipp, Mr John Wickham FRCS, Sir Michael Woodruff, Dr Nigel Yeatman.

  PREFACE TO THE REVISED EDITION

  Over the past fifty years medicine has metamorphosed from a modest pursuit of limited effectiveness into a massive global phenomenon employing millions and costing (hundreds of) billions. Now, in the vast shiny palace the modern hospital has become, the previously unimaginable goals of transplanting organs and curing childhood cancer have become unexceptional, while every year tens of thousands previously doomed to blindness from cataracts or to immobility from crippling arthritis have their sight and mobility restored. Medicine has become the most visible symbol of the fulfilment of the great Enlightenment Project where scientific progress would vanquish the twin perils of ignorance and disease to the benefit of all.

  And yet the more powerful and prestigious medicine has become, the greater the impetus to extend its influence yet further, resulting in the progressive ‘medicalisation’ of people’s lives, to no good purpose and potentially harmful consequences. This takes many forms, from the overinvestigation and over treatment of minor symptoms to the inappropriate use of life-sustaining technologies, anxiety mongering about trivial (or non-existent) threats to health in people’s everyday lives, and the propagation of unreasonable expectations about what the current state of medical research can reasonably expect to achieve.

  These are no trivial matters. They warrant clear analysis and, if possible, remedial action; yet their significance has for the most part been conceal
ed from view by the common perception, profoundly influenced by medicine’s historic achievements, of it being on a continuous and upward curve of knowledge. Here the unknown is merely waiting to be known with, in principle, no limits to its further beneficent advance.

  Yet it is not so, for as I proposed a decade ago in the first edition of The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine, the current difficulties and discontents of medicine are ultimately linked to the changing fortune of the three forces that forged the therapeutic revolution of the post-war years – clinical science, pharmaceutical innovation and technical progress. This, in turn, has created an intellectual vacuum within which faulty and unrealistic assumptions of medicine’s ‘tasks and goals’ have flourished. Now, ten years on, the ‘massive global enterprise’ of medicine remains as powerful as ever – if not more so, and as suggested by the continued exponential increase in National Health Service expenditure and the revenues of the pharmaceutical industry.

  But the central thesis of The Rise and Fall . . . still holds, and so for this second edition I have revised but made no substantial changes to the original text. To this I have added an epilogue examining the three most significant factors in the continuing expansion of the medical enterprise over the past decade: the technical innovations that have extended the benefits of medical intervention to an ever ageing population; the ascendancy of The New Genetics in the aftermath of the completion of the Human Genome Project to become the dominant form of medical research; and, most importantly of all, how an ever wealthier pharmaceutical industry has successfully subverted the proper aims of medicine to its own very profitable advantage.

  INTRODUCTION

  The history of medicine in the fifty years since the end of the Second World War ranks as one of the most impressive epochs of human achievement. So dramatically successful has been the assault on disease that it is now almost impossible to imagine what life must have been like back in 1945, when death in childhood from polio, diphtheria and whooping cough were commonplace; when there were no drugs for tuberculosis, or schizophrenia, or rheumatoid arthritis, or indeed for virtually every disease the doctor encountered; a time before open-heart surgery, transplantation and test-tube babies. These, and a multitude of other developments, have been of immeasurable benefit, freeing people from the fear of illness and untimely death, and significantly ameliorating the chronic disabilities of ageing.