(b) Advantages and Disadvantages of Laboratory Study
Laboratory study has not only the advantages but also the disadvantages. First of all, check the advantages. Next, also check the disadvantages. Then, by paying attention both to the advantages and the disadvantages, consider how we make a good use of laboratory study to examine disease.
In general, laboratory study has an important advantage: "it enables medical researchers to examine accurately microscopic mechanisms in a human body.Why? The reason for this must originate in the progression of material civilizaion. " High-tech devices, which have been provided by material civilization, have enabled medical researchers to observe microscopic mechanisms in a human body such as the structure of a gene and chemical reactions. In short, it is not too much to say that material civilization has progressed, and made a great contribution to laboratory study.
However, high-tech devices, which medical researchers always use at their laboratory research, bring not only such an advantage but also disadvantages to medical researchers. Although high-tech devices have certainly enabled medical researchers to observe microscopic mechanisms in a human body accurately, they unfortunately compel them to think that a human body lives only on the basis of the microscopic functions. As a result, medical researchers unconsciously believe that the fundamental cause of disease originates only in the microscopic functions. This must be one of the important disadvantages of laboratory study.
To the contrary to such a brief, the fundamental causes of many diseases can theoretically be considered to originate in macroscopic mechanisms in a human body. Medical researchers, as explained above, use laboratory study to check accurately microscopic mechanisms observed in a tissue with disease. However, before doing it, they should wonder if the fundamental cause of disease originates only in microscopic mechanisms in a human body. A human body maintains the life both on the basis of the microscopic and the macroscopic function, and often changes the microscopic function in order to control the macroscopic function. Thus, even if medical researchers, by using high-tech devices, can find out various microscopic mechanisms in a human body, they will be unable to understand what mechanisms control the microscopic mechanisms. In other words, without considering how to cause disease, medical researchers will be unable to find out the fundamental cause of disease even if they use high-tech devices.
