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How does medical practice improve? One of its most distinguished practitioners, haematologist David Weatherall, a fellow of the Royal Society and Regius Professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, makes the case for basic scientific research in Science and the Quiet Art (Oxford University Press, £17.99, ISBN 0 1992 62650 7), which is aimed at the general reader. Yet Weatherall acknowledges that any health benefits from contemporary research into molecular biology and genetics may take a long time to materialise. Meanwhile, he says, physicians would do well to remember that medicine is both an “art” and a science.