Garfield had the misfortune of being shot a few years too soon. Even as he lay dying, epochal changes were coming to medical science. The French scientist Louis Pasteur had begun to perceive the links between microbes and disease, and other researchers would soon unveil the causes of such perennial killers as cholera and tuberculosis. By 1900, such staples as aspirin and the X-ray had entered medical practice, and physicians were engaged in an unprecedented riot of discovery. Five decades later, antibiotics had essentially cured many bacterial diseases-and by 1960, modern vaccines had miraculously given millions of children protective immunity against measles and polio. Today, armed with a new understanding of genetics and immunology, researchers are inching toward similar triumphs over a range of chronic and hereditary ailments.
Yet, as the 20th century draws to a close, modern medicine’s limitations and failings are as striking as its successes. The rise of AIDS, a disease unimagined 20 years ago, reminds us that new plagues are still possible. The recent emergence of new, drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis and malaria makes clear that the microbial world is no less inventive than we are. And the persistence of premodern suffering across large stretches of the world-including the developed world-serves as a strong antidote to complacency. These photos chronicle a great journey of progress. They leave us marveling at the crudity of technologies and practices only a generation out of date. With luck, the world of the 1990s will look just as antiquated to our children.
