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20th-Century
Medicine :
Medicine's
most revolutionary advances have occurred since 1900. By the end
of the 20th century, medical advances helped to increase the average
person's life expectancy by almost 30 years. As people lived longer,
new medical challenges emerged. Heart disease, cancer, stroke, and
other conditions often associated with aging replaced infectious
diseases as the leading causes of death. Physicians began to devote
greater attention to preventing disease and keeping patients healthy
into advanced age. Biomedical research also shifted focus to the
most basic causes of diseases, including defects in individual genes.
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