The Discovery of the Unknown in the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Obligation to Endure, and Medicine in the Modern World

Science and the Unknown

Science is continually evolving. For all of human history, people have been taking part in scientific experiments and learning and observing different aspects of life. These may not have always been predetermined experiments per se, but the scientific process is the same used for discovering the world itself and how things work. The growth in these findings and discoveries seems to have grown exponentially, and increasingly so in the past few centuries. This can be attributed to things like the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution, and the discovery of the Americas. However, even with the growth in knowledge due to science and technology, there will always be more to learn, which means there will always be amounts of unknown. This unknown can be frightening and even threatening to the world. By studying three texts: Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde", Rachel Carson's "The Obligation to Endure", and William Bynum's "Medicine in the Modern World, one can see the changes in attitude towards science and technology through the recent rapidly advancing centuries.

To begin, Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" is a novella written in the United Kingdom and published in 1886. It depicts split-personality disease while also depicting the times' interest and excitement in medicine, science, and technology. It is important to note that England was one of the wealthiest countries with resources and drive for scientific advances, leaving the perfect setting for a fictional novel like this to escalate in popularity. In the story, Dr Jekyll, is looking to find away to split himself into two identities so he can live two lives to their full potential, one good and one bad (Stevenson, 1886). This is very relatable as all people can find their inner angels and demons. But what also interests society is not only that, but how he plans on doing this through science. Science is booming at this time so it is not hard to imagine that things done in this story could very well happen relatively soon from that time period in 1886. The interest society has is that science is a real thing that can do the "impossible", and it is changing the world.

On the other hand, science continually will have so many questions and unknowns. Stevenson does well in depicting the dangers as well. For example, Dr Jekyll explains how it was hard for him to partake in the experiment knowing that discoveries are incomplete and there is a risk for possible death (Stevenson, 1886). However, he decides that this could be one of the greatest discoveries, if he prevails, and drinks his potion anyway in the name of science. It works for a while, but soon enough he ends up killing himself because of it, which makes the novella more impressive to society. Stevenson successfully demonstrates the capability and risks of science teaching to be careful with such. There is so little known especially in the late 1800s involving science since at the time, it was still so fresh and new. It is evident that the world had a deep interest in knowing the extent of science and technology.

Moving on, in the mid 20th century, science and the technologies were still on the continuous path of advancement and improvement. In Rachel Carson's "The Obligation to Endure", she warns about the oft-overlooked negative effects of new advancements, particularly pesticides. By this time, the world had become more familiar with science and also had enough time to be able to see the long term affects. For this purpose, it was visible that the pesticides being freely used were actually detrimental and poisonous, not only to humans, but to the whole entire world (Carson, 2010). Carson explains that because of the technological advances, man has acquired significant power to change the natural world. This power is something that Carson also compares to nuclear war. The point she makes with this is that man controls the world with these things, so there needs to be lots of care and thought put into it. The pesticides industry came out with over 200 new chemicals in the mid 20th century and people were using this poison freely, rather that taking care of nuclear warheads to protect. Carson, and the rest of the public became increasingly aware that although science had some nice benefits, there were some consequences that needed to be addressed.

At this point in time, people were becoming more aware with science and technology, it was no longer just a fiction novel; it was real life. Carson used statistics and facts to show that this type of science needs to be contained and tested more and more until there is no more unknown left. The pesticide industry however was not happy about it and vigorously tried to discount Carson. To their dismay, a good amount of pesticides were discontinued and banned, so Carson won the battle of informing the public. Thus, at this time in history the world was beginning to have enough time, resources, and sensibility to be able to control science and understand better what was happening.

The last text to examine is more recent. William Bynum's "Medicine in the Modern World" was published in the turn of the 21st century. This work highlights key points in the advancement in science and technology, and in this case medicine. This passage also doubles as a history to medicine as well, particularly the point after World War 1 where Holistic views were skyrocketing. The basis of Holism is to return to nature, eat simply, and where practical clothes (Bynum, 2008). This applies to medicine because at this time in the middle 20th century people were becoming more aware of the dangers of man made science and technology, as mentioned in the previous paragraph. People feared what they did not know, so most turned to this kind of lifestyle.

Bynum also explains that the world is not studying science for experiment as much as they are studying science for a profit nowadays. This means that the amount of controlled scientific experiments is becoming less and less and there is not enough funding for them. One example of this is the dwindling of NASA, the space exploration program, in the United States. Bynum goes on to argue that medicine is merely emphasizing disease, whereas the focus should be on living a healthy life. This ties in with the Holistic views. So while people in this day and age are similarly scared of the unknown in science and medicine, there is still a lot of information out there that can be known. Resources like the library and the Internet allow research to be done on illness and disease that can help out patients and doctors with open communication. This is a huge drastic change in just a couple of centuries, as people can see real life experiments and results, and communicate throughout the world to further advance the science and technologies.

Although much progress has been made in the recent few centuries involving science and technology, there will always be room for more research and improvement. In the beginning, people were merely trying to understand the world that they were living in. Now, people are trying to understand the methods by which man can control the world that they are living in. With the advancement of science and technology, there is no room for impossible as it comes to fictional novels, killing pests, and growth in medicine. All discoveries must stand the test of time, further justifying the comfortable quality of living available in modern day because of the amount of time. But as mentioned before, there is no end to the amount of new science to discover, and as long as there is new discoveries, there will always be a little bit of unknown and risk that comes along with it.

Works Cited

• Bynum, William. "Medicine in the Modern World." The History of Medicine: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
• Carson, Rachel. "The Obligation to Endure." Reading the World: Ideas That Matter. 2nd ed. New York: W.W. Norton, 2010. 419-426. Print. 
• Stevenson, Robert Louis. Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Longmans, Green, 1886. Print.

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