MODERN METHODS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE 39 



hope that this will lead to knowledge of the nature of this most 

 obscure disease. Questions concerning the circulation and respira- 

 tion in disease which are closely related to physics will find their 

 answer in experimental medicine. The opponents of animal ex- 

 perimentation should remember that the greater our knowledge 

 of disease which comes in this way, the further will disease in man 

 be removed from experiment. Before our present knowledge of 

 diphtheria, tuberculosis, tetanus, and anthrax, all treatment of these 

 diseases was experimental. In certain cases experiments must be 

 carried out in human beings and even when the experiments may 

 have a fatal termination. Such experiments will only be resorted 

 to when this forms the only method of obtaining knowledge 

 of the highest importance, and the subjects of the experiment 

 must be adults who submit with full knowledge of the possible 

 consequences. Let us give all honor to the men who devised and 

 the brave men who submitted to an experiment, the knowledge 

 obtained from which has placed yellow fever in the list of pre- 

 ventable diseases. 



There has been in the past too wide a separation between the 

 public and the medical profession. The public has derived its medical 

 information chiefly through the newspapers and the information so 

 given has been sensational and unreliable. Without correct infor- 

 mation of the problems which face the medical profession and of the 

 methods by which these problems are being solved, neither the sym- 

 pathy nor cooperation of the public may be secured. Active or passive 

 opposition may be encountered. There is evidence that this is being 

 slowly changed. The medicine of the romance is not so fantastic 

 as it was formerly. The general information in biology, human 

 anatomy, and physiology necessary for any appreciation of medi- 

 cine is being imparted by the schools. Many of the popular maga- 

 zines contain admirable articles on disease. The stories of such 

 diseases as malaria and yellow fever have actual fascination. The 

 medical education of the public is also furthered by the work of 

 boards of health in the control of infectious diseases. The public is 

 slowly but none the less surely learning that disease is not a mysteri- 

 ous entity, dwelling like a devil in the body, to be driven out by 

 the use of some equally mysterious agent, but a condition of life 

 which can be guarded against. The public is not slow in the ap- 

 preciation of the results of the work of boards of health, and is 

 willing to make provision for their work. 



Medical education, the training of men to exercise the art of 

 medicine, has been revolutionized in the past twenty-five years. 

 The most marked change has been in the substitution of object-study 

 for the didactic lecture. The didactic lecture is still used, though 

 not with the idea of imparting knowledge, but of showing the in- 



