Man Adapting: With a New Chapter by the Author

by René Dubos

This enlarged edition of Man Adapting includes a new chapter expanding Dr. Dubos’s discussion of the role of medicine in man’s adaptive processes.  In 1965 he wrote at length of the biological and social problems of human adaptation, while treating the medical aspects of this problem only in passing.  He believed that the goal of medicine was to help man function successfully with the particular circumstances of his environment and heredity.  But despite advancements in the prevention and treatment of disease, skepticism has developed during the last two decades concerning the usefulness of modern medicine.  Dr. Dubos turns here to readdress this question.

Today physicians rely on sophisticated scientific knowledge, and no longer offer the traditional doctor-patient relationship which ministered to psychological as well as physical comfort.  But it is this spiritual aspect of human medicine, Dr. Dubos argues, which distinguishes it from general biology, and it will retain its unique position among the sciences only if it accepts responsibility for the human aspects of life.  Dr. Dubos demonstrates the complex interrelationship between man and his biological environment.  He writes, “I have attempted to focus my attention on the individual human being . . . trying as best he can to meet the emergencies of the day and to prepare for the uncertainties of the future.  He is Man Adapting. ”

Genres: Science

527 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

René Jules Dubos was an American microbiologist, experimental pathologist, environmentalist, and humanist. He is credited as an author of the maxim, "Think globally, act locally".

Reviews

[Andy · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a book written in the 1960s, it's amazing how much of this is still valid. Most of the historical improvements in health around the world have been from non-medical interventions. While evidence-based medicine is valuable, more and more spending on medical care does not produce linear increases in health. To understand and optimize population health, one needs to look beyond the "doctrine of specific etiology" and see human beings in the context of their environments and behaviors.
It is either sad or comforting to see that controversies then, like mandatory childhood immunization, are still controversial now.

Similar and shorter:
The Role of Medicine: Dream, Mirage, or Nemesis?
Mirage of Health: Utopias, Progress, and Biological Change



Quotes:
-DDT went further toward the eradication of malariologists than of mosquitoes.
-...most pathogens are widely distributed and yet do not cause clinical disease except in a very small percentage of persons and animals harboring them
-[A] most important aspect of the epidemiology of disease (as contrasted with the epidemiology of infection) has to do with the factors that upset the equilibrium between host and parasite and thereby convert dormant infection into overt disease.
-The very fact that the etiology of most degenerative diseases probably involves a constellation of factors complicates the analytical work of the epidemiologist and the experimenter, but it increases the potential range of control measures by making it possible to break the chain of causation at different links.
-The sanitary ideal developed at first without any support from laboratory science. ... it emerged from the conviction that the high rates of disease and death were largely preventable because they were due to filth, dirt, crowding, and other social factors that could be corrected.
-the disease problems created by the Industrial Revolution stimulated in the Western world a crusading spirit that engendered great social reforms and a healthier environment.
Like the lay public, the scientific community has paid little heed to the fact that the diseases characteristic of our times are to a large extent the consequences of changes in the ways of life and in the environment. The search for the environment determinants of disease is not a fashionable topic and carries little scientific prestige.
A kind of crusade similar to that conducted by the nineteenth century sanitarians is needed to create the social atmosphere in which the study of long-range consequences is considered an essential part of technological research.
-several medial problems have all but disappeared without benefit of scientific understanding, through a process which has been called “historic bypass.” For example, infantile diarrheas are now scarce in Western countries despite the fact that their etiologies are not at all understood

[Nils · Rating 3 out of 5]

A rather peculiar book, perhaps best read as a marker of the state of scientific knowledge when it was published in 1965. Structured around terms that are largely outmoded at this point, such as the presumption of homeostasis as the “natural” condition, it also reflects very much the anxieties of Western intellectuals at the moment it was written — of nuclear war, overpopulation, resource depletion, and genetic decay. Firmly structured around human exceptionalism.

[Yusita · Rating 5 out of 5]

Old book and very limitied edtion! Mr. Prof. Gunawan Tjahjono, is my favorite lecture when I was a student at depok city who recommended this book to me and took this book from his own library at his house after we shared each other about my topic. He's very smart, wise and unique lecture for me...I adore him as a good person and lecture for his job.
Thanx so much Prof. Gunawan for being mylecture and myguide so, I could finished mythesis by ur kindness and wisely to me very..very much and of course by the grace of my beloved God, Allah,swt. It's a very good result for me..Thank you so much...:)

This book tells about man adapting in new environment from the begining until last.

best regards,
YP