The cave man lived probably as long as we live today, provided he could cross the critical barrier of infancy and childhood. This is contrary to the popular belief inculcated by the medical care industry.

To the surprise of many the increased life expectancy (as erroneously calculated) has come mostly from decreased infant mortality (see the chart). Chances are if you are 45, you will live to be 70, just the cave man did.

What has then modern science done? It has certainly improved the quality of life but not the life expectancy of adults . The fact is that the Neanderthal man survived the rigors including diseases well though millions of years before the discovery of antibiotics, CATSCAN and "mouse-scans" without which today, we would not conceive surviving.

Take for example, the spread and containment of the most dreaded disease: tuberculosis. The accompanying chart shows that the death rate from tuberculosis has been falling since 1840, the earliest year of recorded deaths from tuberculosis.

Forty five years later the discovery for the organism causing tuberculosis and over a hundred years later discovery of streptomycin, the most treatment of tuberculosis, made only small dent in the downward spiral of deaths from tuberculosis.

What if we had not discovered the causative organism for tuberculosis or its treatment? Chances are we would have done just about as well. At the time of discovery of streptomycin, 97 percent of cases of tuberculosis had already been eliminated.

Tuberculosis is not unusual: similar reductions in mortality occurred with pneumonia, influenza, whooping cough, measles and scarlet fever. Whooping cough (pertusis) was rampant in the late 1800s, killing over one in a thousand children. Today, deaths from whooping cough are rare. Immunization from whooping cough did make a difference but when it became available, the death rate had already fallen by 90 per cent.

What can account for the decrease in the incidence of many dreaded diseases before their treatments were discovered? The advances in agriculture in the 18th and 19th century made more varied and nutritious foods available; these foods boosted our immunity to these infectious diseases.

Other changes such as availability of clean water, improved sewage disposal and better food hygiene probably would account for about one-fifth of decline in deaths due to infectious diseases.

Pasteurization of milk also reduced spread of many diseases including gastroenteritis and diarrhoea in children. But who brought these changes; these were food scientist and sewage engineers not doctors.

Improved economic conditions reduced the need to have larger families to till farmlands and the health of mother and the offspring's improved; availability of secure jobs and pensions reduced the mental burden and improved the lives of workers.

Though a major impact on our health came from improved living conditions, medical discoveries did create changes in our lives such as immunization that has now eradicated small pox from this planet; immunization prevented tetanus, antitoxins limited deaths from diphtheria, surgery helped appendicitis and peritonitis; Salvarsan stopped syphilis, intravenous therapy saved lives from diarroea and improved obstetric care prevented childbed fever.

We live longer today not because of the well publicized better treatment but because we tend not to become ill in the first place. If you can live to be forty five , chances are you will live to be 70; of course, it is a statistical average.

Some will live longer some shorter. The disease that will kill us probably will also not be the same for all. While more Westerners will die of heart disease and cancer, the major cause of death in Eskimos will remain falling off the ladder while fixing their igloos. We will die on way or another.

The question how should a Third World country improve the life expectancy and quality of life should be answered prospectively. Limited financial resources, illiteracy and harsh weather conditions often limited proper utilization of the modern day medical care

Greater benefits are to be gained by adopting action that give better odds: improving nutrition, quality of water, sanitation, etc. Availability of the state-of-the art procedures must take a back seat.

The famous cliché, "an apple a day keeps the doctor away", holds well for the Third World. Let us invest more in apple farming than in training doctors.

P.S. The author does not hold any palpable hostility against the medical profession.