Magic Bullets

Some medical interventions, such as penicillin and insulin, are good examples of magic bullets. The magic bullet model of medical interventions represents two principles: specificity and effectiveness. The magic bullet model gained popularity in the mid-twentieth century with the discovery of antibiotics and insulin. Once we appreciate the complexity of the constitutive causal basis of diseases and the cascading physiological complexity of effects of exogenous interventions, the expectation of effectiveness and specificity ought to be mitigated. The theory that drugs can intervene on one or few microphysiological targets and thereby bring about an effect that is both clinically significant and symptomatically specific is, for many interventions, unfounded.