1775 



that strike down whole populations. Eradication of communicable 

 •diseases, correction of dietary deficiencies, and control of disease 

 ■vectors yield larger returns in global health than would an equivalent 

 monetary effort applied to medical care. 



Points like these, developed in Dr. Quimby's study, suggest that a 

 rough comparabihty may exist between curative versus preventive 

 medicine and high versus low technology generally. The interest 

 and intensive use of science tends to center on the high technology 

 of curative medicine; the opportunity for massive improvement at 

 modest cost, with moderate further application of new science, tends 

 to center on the low technology of preventive medicine. 



While the analogy is inexact in that both medical philosophies 

 entail heavy resort to scientific research, the science of^ preventive 

 medicine — once its discoveries are established and accepted — becomes 

 widely applicable. It can also make effective use of a higher proportion 

 of paramedical personnel. Curative medical science, on the other 

 hand, is costly both because of the individual problems it addresses 

 and because of the equipment, skills, and effort required in each 

 individual case. 



ISSUE three: beyond malthus 



An obviously close relationship exists between this study and the 

 Global Health study (Issue Two). The food/population equation 

 deals largely with low technology on both sides of the equation. 

 Endless modifications of long-estabhshed technologies, and social 

 institutional innovations to exploit these technologies more fully, 

 are the focus of the study. 



Useful, but for the most part probably only modest, contributions 

 of high technology are offered in the field of agriculture: for example, 

 in weather forecasting and modification, in crop surveys and 

 crop disease detection and assessment, in satellite surveys of soils 

 and hj^drology, and in computerized management of marketing 

 information. 



The main lines of opportunity for improvement in agricultural 

 productivity in the United States have historically been in incre- 

 mental advances in such low technologies as fertilizers, improvement 

 of genetic strains, pest control, moisture management, product 

 preservation, and the like. The really major innovation in U.S. 

 agriculture, lying in the social science area, has been the purposeful 

 coupling of new discovery witH informed practical application by 

 trained and skilled farm technicians. 



Similarly with the population side of the equation: incremental 

 innovations in the biology of human reproduction management have 

 occurred but the primary factors determining the rate of population 

 increase are sociological. The role of high technology in this area ap- 

 pears to be negligible to nonexistent, although the possibility remains 

 that some innovation may emerge from the interaction of biology and 

 electromagnetics. However, corporations skilled in high technology 

 do not appear to have attacked this problem. 



issue four: u.s. scientists abroad 



The focus of this study is on people — and in particular on scientists 

 rather than technologists. The question of high technology versus low 



