Authentic Science Fiction Monthly, Issue 45 — page 93: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MEDICAL PROGRESS by 2000 A.D. by C. V. JACKSON, F.R.S.A. Could the average serious- minded citizen of 1900 have foretold the medical wonders which we today accept all too complacentiy? Medical sci- ence has made such great strides in the last half-century that it would not be fantastic to expect miracles of healing, perhaps knowledge of life itself, to have been achieved by the close of the 20th Century. First let us pause to con- sider that great scientific dis- covery of our age: the splitting of the atom. Its powers of destruction are only too well known. Not so often ap- preciated by the average citi- zen is the fact that its promise in medicine is as much a blessing as the atom bomb is a menace to mankind. Take, for instance, the atom discovery of Carbon 13. This important discovery was made by Professor Frederick Shoddy of Oxford. The Professor discovered the isotopes and then found that Carbon iso- topes produced Carbon 13. In those early experiments 92 only an ounce of Carbon 13 was obtained, but latterly two American scientists, Dr. H. C. Urey and Dr. Allen Reid, have devised a process by which its production has been greatly accelerated. It has been said that Carbon 13 is perhaps the most power- ful aid that has yet been dis- covered for use in research on such diseases as cancer, dia- betes, certain forms of heart disease,. and arteriosclerosis. It is expected to provide us with important clues as to the most satisfactory methods of treatment and prevention. Perhaps the greatest poten- tiality of Carbon 13 is that with its aid we may yet dis- cover the answer to one of the most elusive of all medical enigmas—the cause and suc- cessful cure of cancer. Since it has been claimed that Carbon 13 will enable qualified men to witness normal, healthy cells of the body changing into an abnormal or un- healthy condition, then it is reasonable to presume that careful observations may well comiclooks.corn