L J L'4 THK XKUVOl S S^STK.M AND ITS < '< >.\SKK\ AT1OX 



sible service. Third- and this is often overlooked it is 

 the generous payments of those who can afford them which 

 make it possible for the practitioner to give his best skill 

 freely to the poor. 



Too many intelligent people have failed to read of the 

 achievements of medical science. It is only when the 

 former insecurity of life is contrasted with its present 

 conservation that our indebtedness to the profession is 

 realized. The stories of tin 1 conquest <,f small-pox and 

 yellow fever arc- among the most thrilling that can be 

 found in human annals. The discovery of the chief 

 methods of anesthesia and of the way to avoid surgical 

 infection these have almost an equal power to grip the 

 reader. A little acquaintance with the literature of 

 seventy-five years ago suffices to make one reali/e the 

 horror of epidemics, particularly of yellow fever and 

 cholera. Typhus fever, which once ravaged the steerages 

 of emigrant ships, has become a rare and curious disease. 

 Pessimists often lay stress upon the increasing prominence 

 of certain causes of death. They forget that sine-.- man is 

 mortal, the individuals who escape one malady must later 

 be counted among the victims of another. The happy 

 fact is that they have lived through longer, more vigorous, 

 and more rewarding lives. 



