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Mirage of Health
Utopias, Progress, and Biological Change

Dubos, Rene
Publisher:  Harper & Row, USA
Year Published:  1979   First Published:  1959
Pages:  292pp  
Dewey:  616.98
Resource Type:  Book

Dubos attempts to show that while it may be comforting to imagine a life free of stresses and strains in a carefree world, this will remain an idle dream. Humans cannot hope to find another Paradise on earth, because paradise is a static concept while human life is a dynamic process.

Abstract: 
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Table of Contents

The Gardens of Eden
The Golden Ages
The Return to Nature
Health through Science
Health as Adaptation

Biological and Social Adaptation
The Haunts of Life
Biological Adaptations in Man
Adaptation through Social Mechanisms
Unstability of Ecological Systems
Social Determinants of Human Fitness

Struggle and Partnership in the Living World
The struggle for Existence
Man and the World of Microbes
Infection versus Disease
Adaptive Mechanisms of Resistance to Infection
Symbiosis and Parasitism

Environment and Disease
The Weather , the Potato Blight, and the Destiny of the Irish
The Doctrine of Specific Etiology
Direct and Indirect Effects of the External Environment
The Internal Environment
Interplay's between the External and the Internal Environment
The Past as Factor of the Environment

Hygeia and Asclepius
Gods of Health
Hippocratic Wisdom and the Goldheaded Cane
The Philosopher's Search for Health
The Magic Bullets of Medicine
Drugs and the Conquest of Disease
Orthobiosis

Social Patterns of Health and of Disease
The History of Diseases
Hunger and Surfeit
The Diseases of Pestilence and of Sanitation
Modern Horsemen of the Apocalypse
From Madness to boredom
Medicine and Society

Effects of Disease on Populations and on Civilization
Food, Disease, and Population Trends
Effects of Disease and Nutrition on Military and Political History
Disease and Social Evolution
Effects of Disease on Cultural Forces

Utopias and Human Goals
Arcadias and Utopias
From Biological Adaptation to Social Evolution
Social Changes and Ecological Equilibria
Health, Happiness, and Human Values

Envoi

Epilogue: What World Perspectives Means, By Ruth Nanda Anshen

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