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To the Editor.—In the Piece of My Mind entitled "Chaos, and the Limits of Modern Medicine," Dr Goodwin¹ attempts an evaluation of medicine in the context of modernism and postmodern disillusionment, briefly reviews the theory of chaos pointing at its relevance to medicine, and calls for a more humane approach to the patient as an individual. His point of view is well taken, but some of his arguments could be viewed from a different perspective.

The modernist belief that "all things are knowable" and "growing understanding will result in improvement of the human condition" is not new; it is as old as the work of Plato, who, in his turn, may have borrowed from older sources. The characterization of medicine as the "last bastion of modernism" acquires a different meaning when viewed in a continuity bridging centuries. The last bastion is not always the embodiment of a lost cause. . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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RELATED ARTICLE

Chaos, and the Limits of Modern Medicine
James S. Goodwin
JAMA. 1997;278(17):1399-1400.
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