A vast health checkup is now being conducted in the western Swedish province of Farmland w
The results so far have been astonishing, for hundreds of Swedes have learned that they have silent symptoms of disorders that neither they nor their physicians were aware of. Among them were iron-deficiency anemia, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension and diabetes.
The automated blood analysis apparatus was developed by Dr. Gunnar Lungner, 49 year-old associate professor of clinical chemistry at Goteborg University, and his borther, Ingmar, 39, the physician in charge of the chemical central laboratory of Stockholm's Hospital for Infectious Diseases. The idea was conceived 15 years ago when Dr. Gunnar Jungner was working as clinical chemist in northern Sweden and was asked by local physician to devise a way of performing multiple analyses on a single blood sample. The design was ready in 1961. Consisting of calorimeters, pumps and other components, many of them American-made, the Jungner apparatus was set up here in Stockholm. Samples from Farmland Province are drawn into the automated system at 90 second intervals. The findings clatter forth in the form. of number printed by an automatic typewriter.
The Jungners predict that advance knowledge about a person's potential ailments by the chemical screening process will result in considerable savings in hospital and other medical costs. Thus, they point out, the blood analyses will actually turn out to cost nothing. In the beginning, the automated blood analyses ran into considerable opposition from some physicians who had no faith in machines and saw no need for so many tests. Some laboratory technicians who saw their jobs threatened also protested. But the opposition is said to be waning.(317)
The author's attitude towards automation is that of ______.
A.indecision
B.remorse
C.indifference
D.favor