In the near future, diagnosing a patient Illness may become much less painful for the patient and less uncertain for the doctor. Research and technological advances in scientific photography may ultimately enable a doctor to discover a patient's problem with pictures rather than with blood and tissue samples. Such new diagnostic techniques may even help doctors detect diseases much earlier than they could using conventional techniques. One new technique is thermography, a photographic process in which variations in temperature within the body show up as different colors. Even at rest the temperatures of different areas of the body are constantly changing. Scientists are now trying to understand why this is true and how these variations in temperature relate to illness. Although the research is incomplete, most scientists agree that thermography holds definite possibilities for an early detection of disease or for predicting an individual's predisposition for certain unhealthy conditions. This technique of measuring the variations of body temperature graphically has a great advantage over X-rays and other conventional diagnostic methods. With thermography there are no side effects, no uncomfortable exploratory procedures, and there is no need to take blood and tissue samples. Patients need not endure pain or fear unknown procedures. There is no question that this new photographic technique will improve healthcare in the future.