ABSTRACT
The growth of information about human genetics has proceeded according to a curve similar to that exhibited by bacteria or other populations of living organisms. The evolution of preventive medicine and its conjunction with primary care is strikingly similar to that of human genetics. Originating in the 19th century in efforts by government or voluntary agencies to preserve the health of the public through social action, including improvements in sanitation, housing, nutrition, and working conditions, preventive medicine, like genetics, entered its exonential phase in the 1950s. Geneticists have discovered how to use their discipline in the pursuit of preventive goals, but academic officialdom in prevention has perceived neither the identity of their own aims with those of the geneticists, nor the virtues of the genetic method in realizing those aims. The public is in the process of being apprised, sometimes inaccurately, of the value of genetic services, and the clamor will increase.
