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Previous Volume 341:768-769 September 2, 1999 Number 10 Next

	Since this article has no abstract, we have provided an extract of the first 100 words of the full text and any section headings.

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To the Editor: In his Sounding Board article (April 22 issue),¹ Goodwin wrote, "Modern medicine does not work well for old people." Goodwin acknowledges that preventing diseases may be desirable but assails the treatment of "proto-illnesses," such as hypertension, osteoporosis, high cholesterol levels, aortic aneurysm, colonic polyps, and carotid-artery stenosis, which "do not cause symptoms and produce no suffering." Is there a better way of providing relief from suffering than by preventing it? To view humane care of patients and scientific medicine as opposites is dangerous to good health. Care and cure are not mutually exclusive.

Too many geriatricians see . . . [Full Text of this Article]

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