The Tools of Our Trade — Some Comments on Disease and Disorder

Abstract

MOST persons use tools whose functions are clear to them, but whose construction is beyond their understanding. On the simple side, I strike a safety match to light my cigar without the slightest idea what makes up the red tip or how the combination of matchbook and match works to make a flame. On the complex side, I use the "black box" of a hand calculator to balance my accounts; I have faith that the orange lights paradoxically so gay in the little window stand for the true facts, but how they get there I do not know, and sometimes . . .