    26

    con

    temporary healthcare.  The investigators pointed out that

    devastating illnesses like typhoid, cholera, measles, smallpox and

    tuberculosis began their decline in the mid-1800's.  Over time, these

    sicknesses dwindled to a tiny fraction of their previous levels.  The

    wonder drugs usually credited with eradicating the

    diseases--antibiotics--were not invented until nearly 100 years AFTER

    the illnesses started to disappear.  Tuberculosis, for example, decreased

    by a startling 97% from 1800 to 1945.  Only then was streptomycin

    finally introduced to mop up the meager fraction still remaining.

    Apparently it was not just the set of bottles in the doctor's bag or the

    miraculous pills dispensed by his prescriptions that destroyed the

    deadly scourge.39

    Exactly what did produce the dramatic increase in contemporary

    health still eludes the experts.  Some say it was the improvement in

    nutrition, the introduction of clean water supplies, and the

    improvement of sanitation.  Others, like California epidemiologist

    Leonard A. Sagan, that it was the greater freedom--and hence degree of

    control--which became available to the average citizen.

    Maybe it's not so surprising, then, that a vast variety of the

    symptoms which afflict mankind puzzle even the most erudite doctor.

    Over 50% of the patients who troop into medical offices are sent home

    with the assurance that there's nothing really wrong.  Even

    "well-understood" illnesses are far less controllable by medical

    techniques than physicians are willing to admit.  How does the medical

    profession deal with this dilemma?  It hides its ignorance.  According

    to a 1987 study by psychologist Dan Bar-On of Israel's Ben Gurion

    University 40, patients are usually better able to predict the impact of

    their malady than their doctors.  What doctors are selling, then, is not

    necessarily the ability to cure us.  It the illusion of control.

    While medical practitioners make their living from the human

    hunger for control, they are also frequently victims of that hunger.

    Like their patients, doctors need desperately to believe that they,

    indeed, can dominate the forces of disease and healing.  Psychological

    research suggests that people tend to block out what they can't control,

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