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"This is a predictive tool I've used: There are goals we've sought for ten thousand years, and we'll go on seeking them. Instant transport and travel, immortality (or at least longevity and miracle cures.), instant learning …"
- Larry Niven
 |
| Phymech | ||
| A robotic physician. |
| Far more intricate than a mere robot-mechanical, yet far simpler
than a human brain, it was capable-after proper conditioning-of the most delicate of operations. Further, the "phymech", as it was tagged soon after, was capable of infallible diagnosis, involving anything organic.
The House of Congress appointed a committee of fact-finders, from the firm of Data, Unlimited... They found phymechs could be operated in all the socialized hospitals of the Continent, for far less than was being spent on Doctor's salaries. A phymech absorbed one half pint of Iiquified radiol every three years, and an occasional oiling, to insure proper functioning.
So the government passed a law.
The Hippocratic Law of of 2088,
which said, in essence: Johns Hopkins was the first to be de-franchised.
 (Phymechs from 'Wanted in Surgery' by Harlan Ellison) A few specialist schools were maintained for a time, but it became increasingly apparent after the first three years of phymech operation, that even the specialists were slow compared to the robot doctors. |
| From Wanted in Surgery,
by Harlan Ellison. Published by IF Worlds of Science Fiction in 1957 Additional resources -
|
Additional details:
but no, it had to be a
brain job, with the phymechs' thirty
telescoping, snakelike appendages
extruded, and snicking into the
patient...
One of the telescoping, snakelike
tentacles of one phymech had a
wafer-thin circular saw on it, and
as Thomas watched, the saw sliced
down, and they could hear the buzz
of steel meeting skull...
...the snicker and gleam of the instruments being
whipped from their cubicles in the
phymech's storage-bin chest.
There
were no operating lamps in the
ceiling, as in old-style hospitals, for
the phymechs each had their own powerful "internal" light mounted
atop their heads, that served more
accurately than any outside light
could have...
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Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Wanted in Surgery
More Ideas
and Technology by Harlan Ellison
Tech news articles related to Wanted in Surgery
Tech news articles related to works by Harlan Ellison
Phymech-related
news articles:
- Robot Surgeons No Better Than Humans
| Terrifying Robotic Apple Harvester |
| Jetson-Style Clockwork Robot Nail Salon Coming To Target Near You |
| Mechanical Horse Sculpture Gallops In Place |
| Hotels Turn To Robots As Human Workers Regroup |
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'The pokkecon rang again. *The coffee’s for him?* Tsuyoshi said.'
The Jetsons imagined so much future.
'Rod placed the brain inside the panel... the horse raised its head, wiggled its ears, blinked twice, gave a tentative whinny.'
'Pina2bo would have to operate full blast for many years to put as much SO2 into the stratosphere as its namesake had done in a few minutes.'
'Chain of hotels that specialized in non-human service.'
'But then... not every bulldozer operator works on the Moon.'
'Griff found the white and pink map distracting and switched it off using his tongue mouse.'
