Research Catalog

Title

Where medicine went wrong : rediscovering the path to complexity / Bruce J. West.

Author

West, Bruce J.

Publication

Hackensack, NJ : World Scientific, [2006], ©2006.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xi, 337 pages : illustrations; 23 cm.

Summary

"Where Medicine Went Wrong explores how the idea of an average value has been misapplied to medical phenomena, distorted understanding and lead to flawed medical decisions. Through new insights into the science of complexity, traditional physiology is replaced with fractal physiology, in which variability is more indicative of health than is an average. The capricious nature of physiological systems is made conceptually manageable by smoothing over fluctuations and thinking in terms of averages. But these variations in such aspects as heart rate, breathing and walking are much more susceptible to the early influence of disease than are averages."--BOOK JACKET.

Series Statement

Studies of nonlinear phenomena in life science ; v. 11

Uniform Title

Studies of nonlinear phenomena in life sciences ; v. 11.

Subject

• Medicine > Philosophy
• Fractals
• Human physiology
• Health status indicators
• Nonlinear theories
• Physiological Phenomena
• Models, Biological
• Health Status Indicators
• Nonlinear Dynamics
• Philosophy, Medical

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [317]-326) and index.

Contents

1. Chance and variation -- 2. The expectation of health -- 3. Even uncertainty has laws -- 4. The uncertainty of health -- 5. Fractal physiology -- 6. Complexity -- 7. Disease as loss of complexity.

ISBN

• 9812568832
• 9789812568830

LCCN

2006042102

OCLC

• ocm71779064
• 71779064
• SCSB-5319044

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries