Some Critical Episodes in the Progress of Medical Innovation: An Anglo-American Perspective

The central concern of this paper is to show that medical innovations have depended heavily on breaking down barriers that have long prevailed in the academic world, in the form of disciplinary boundaries that have coalesced into separate departments. In the longer run, this sharp distinction between Life Sciences and Physical Sciences may be the basis for excessively narrow and inappropriate policy recommendations. Some of the biggest breakthroughs in the Life Sciences came from the Physical Sciences.