ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the social and economic implications of medical nanotechnology and nanomedicine. Societies have different ways of reacting to new technological developments. In primitive societies, health services such as they were, were provided by a village, or tribal shaman or priest, who typically held a monopoly for service over everyone in his or her group. In the European Middle Ages and in other feudal societies, legitimate healthcare knowledge, and to a large extent, provision of medical services, was claimed as the monopoly of the church and its institutions, including the monastery and hospital. Nanotechnology has been described as a disruptive technology in the economic sense. Changes made by application of nanotechnology will be a continuation of the changes made by previous technological advances, but may be expected to be more rapid. Nanotechnology is being used directly and/or indirectly in every discipline and speciality of medicine.
