- In around 2020 a severe pneumonia-like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and the bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself will be the fact that it will suddenly vanish as quickly as it arrived, attack again ten years later, and then disappear completely.
Strides in mental health in the first half of this century will be extraordinary, virtually eliminating the majority of the disorders that plague society today. And if we want to create a more productive, more successful, more peaceful, better- educated world in which crime is an anomaly rather than the norm, we should solve the mysteries of ADHD, OCD, depression, bipolarism, and schizophrenia and we’ll be well on our way.
Earlier we discussed the fact that newborn infants will be tested and treated for chemical imbalances that might lead to future psychological problems. That will be true for children, adolescents, and adults as well. No later than the end of 2009, there will be very precise formulas describing which imbalances will cause which problems, and which treatments will be most effective in solving them. We’ll see an end to the liberal, often careless prescribing of Ritalin and antidepressants with no blood tests at all to indicate whether those medications are even appropriate. Instead, links will be discovered between specific psychological disorders and specific protein deficiencies, so that when those deficiences are pin-pointed and addressed with precision, the disorders will permanently disappear.
By 2013 we’re going to see an amazing development in the treatment of mental illness. There will be a device, used exclusively by highly trained psychiatrists and neurologists, that will employ electromagnetic impulses to treat and often cure these brain malfunctions. This device will glide slowly and smoothly across the surface of the skull, much like an MRI, both horizontally and vertically. As it moves, it will detect any abnormalities in the brain, the cerebrospinal fluid that surrounds the brain, blood circulation in and around the brain, and neurological and chemical activity within each hemisphere of the brain and between the two hemispheres, the individual lobes, etc.
Details of the scan, with diagnostic readouts, will be monitored by the psychiatric or neurological administrator. When the device senses a disturbance—slow or blocked circulation, for example, or “misfiring” or dormant neurotransmitters—it emits a series of electromagnetic impulses of varying intensity with pinpoint precision to stimulate the problem area, no matter how microscopic and otherwise undetectable it might be. These treatments on a monthly basis, combined with appropriate medications, will contribute as dramatically to the world of mental health as DNA has contributed to the world of law enforcement, essentially “curing” everything from bipolar disorder and depression to ADHD, OCD, post-traumatic stress syndrome and chronic anxiety.
As for schizophrenia and severe cases of epilepsy, those will be successfully treated in 2014 by a microchip implanted in the brain that will essentially “override” the system when it detects that any kind of malfunction, misfire, or shutdown is about to happen. This tiny microchip will perform the same function for the brain that the pacemaker performs for the heart, and with equally brilliant success.
We have a very substantial drop in the crime rate to look forward to in the next fifty years. One reason for this is the influx of advanced spirits that will be arriving from Home as the century progresses, as we’ll explain in depth in the next chapter. The other reason is the advancements in law enforcement and forensics that will absolutely thrill every loyal CSI fan.
Probably the most dramatic headline is the fact that by 2025 at the latest, law enforcement will have new and expanded databases at their disposal that will make it almost not worth the trouble to commit crimes.
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