The Quest for Health: Your Own Responsibility

　　In the 90’s and beyond, the basic concept of health care is a simple one: take charge of your own life. You must be responsible for your own physical, psychological, emotional, spiritual, environmental, and social well-being. In the past, medicine was concerned mainly with treating diseases and improving living conditions. How-ever, through scientific and technological progress, many diseases have been eliminated and others that were once lethal are now easily diagnosed and treated. For example, smallpox is almost unknown to today’s generation, and poliomyelitis has been eradicated in the Western Hemisphere. Once dreaded infectious diseases, such as typhoid, cholera, tetanus, and pneumonia, are now usually curable. Syphilis was once one of the most feared diseases, but now it is easily treated. Appendicitis, once fatal, is now considered minor surgery.