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When I was a kid, thinking about existential despair had a certain natural elegance. After all, it produced the art of Camus, Edward Hopper, film noir and Ingmar Bergman. But times have changed. Can you imagine anyone nowadays having a serious discussion about Bergman's "The Seventh Seal"?

Having been seduced by biotech's tantalizing promise of eventual control over disease, our fears have shifted from the metaphysical to the physical. Sickness unto death no longer is a metaphor, but a description of what is to be avoided at all cost. We are now preoccupied with preventive medicine and advance warnings, perpetually hypervigilant in the hope of deterring the inevitable.

Ask Dr. Bob Dr. Robert Burton, who is a neurologist and novelist, answers health questions every Monday in Salon Health & Body. Please e-mail your queries to him at AskDrBob@ salon.com.

But technology has thrown down the ultimate philosophical gauntlet -- genetic testing. Do we really want to know what lies ahead? (This month, the journal Nature announced the first complete genetic sequencing of a human chromosome. Present estimates indicate that the complete human genomic sequence will be finished, in rough draft form, in less than a year).

Let's consider the consequences of having this knowledge about our genetic structure. Imagine being a child of singer-songwriter Woody Guthrie and watching your charming, witty, father forget his own lyrics, stumble over his guitar strings, have sporadic outbursts of irrational behavior, gradually lose his coordination and his mind. You watch him struggle for 15 years, his personality slipping away until he eventually dies in a back ward in the Brooklyn State Hospital. You remember watching the same scenario unfold with your grandmother. Then your two sisters are affected.

You consult with the doctor; he tells you that your family illness is Huntington's Disease (HD). If one of your parents has it, you have a 50-50 chance of getting it. But, she adds, "There is now specific genetic testing. If you're positive, you'll get the disease, though I can't say when. (HD can begin anytime from infancy to old age.) If you're negative, you won't get it and you can't give it to your children."

So, do you get the test?

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