By the time I read The Youngest Science, the scientific transformation of medicine had deepened even further. Take heart failure again. In 1937, Thomas wrote, the only reliable means to affect a failing heart, aside from propping up its function with extra oxygen, was to alter blood volume by inserting a needle into a vein and drawing out a hundred milliliters of fluid from the body. To a cardiologist working in the late 1990s, this would be akin to lancing an abscess using a skin cup: it might work, but it was a decidedly medieval approach.

By the time I read The Youngest Science, the scientific transformation of medicine had deepened even
further. Take heart failure again. In 1937, Thomas wrote, the only reliable means to affect a failing heart,
aside from propping up its function with extra oxygen, was to alter blood volume by inserting a needle
into a vein and drawing out a hundred milliliters of fluid from the body. To a cardiologist working in the
late 1990s, this would be akin to lancing an abscess using a skin cup: it might work, but it was a
decidedly medieval approach.