3o6 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



medical performer of his time, Hahnemaim, is reported to have said 

 that two thirds of all diseases have this origin, 'they are the itch 

 struck-in.' But a little knowledge of entomology with a hand lens has 

 abolished the disease. Itch no longer 'strikes in' and nothing is more 

 easily cured. Meanwhile the internal disorders called itch are being 

 treated each in its own way. 



The progress in medicine has been in proportion to its dependence 

 on science and the scientific method. Science is human experience 

 tested and set in order. Progress through science means simply 

 learning through experience and taking pains to sift and test ex- 

 perience. 



I need not speak of the details of this progress. Surgery is applied 

 anatomy; antisepsis is applied bacteriology ;. pharmacology is applied 

 chemistry; vnth instruments of precision, wonderful progress is made 

 in the interpretation of experience. There is nothing in the history 

 of science more suggestive than the simultaneous lights thrown on 

 bacteria and microbes from many quarters at once. Lister with his 

 clean knives and antiseptic surgery, Bastian trying to prove the spon- 

 taneous generation of infusoria in vegetable broths; Tyndall trying to 

 clear his tubes from floating particles in the air which break up the 

 rays of light, Pasteur with his blighted silk-worms — all these men 

 were at work at the same problem — each with his varied instruments 

 of precision, and the final result of all, the theory of fermentation, 

 putrefaction, antisepsis and contagious diseases. Our knowledge of the 

 minute organisms all about us, as real, as helpful or as harmful as the 

 larger creatures of the earth, but the whole beyond the reach of the 

 unaided senses. 



With this knowledge, we have a new birth of the art of medicine. 

 When we know our enemies, we can fight them intelligently. The 

 progress of medicine, its achievements and discoverias being granted, 

 how shall we teach it? ^. 



There should be advance in methods of teaching as well as in 

 methods of gaining and testing facts. In the old days we had the 

 method of apprenticeship. The little doctor saw what the big one did 

 and followed his method. He learned to say the magic word, to make 

 the magic passes, to brew the magic drug, to say more than he knows 

 and to know more than he says. 



in the ancient universities, the lecture was an exercise in dictation, 

 the student taking word for word the wise phrases of the master. The 

 ancient wizardry still prevails in some of our forms of medico- 

 religious healing ; the ancient belief in simples and signatory remedies, 

 in our patent medicine trade. With ignorant people, the mysteries of 



