NEW OUTLOOKS IN MEDICINE. 367 



But the greatest immediate practical benefit derived from the 

 new knowledge of micro-organisms is the certainty with which 

 some large groups of infectious disease can be controlled by pri- 

 vate and public measures of sanitation. 



Of course, in sanitation, as in other phases of morals, it is not 

 as easy to do as to know what 'twere well to do. But it is safe to 

 say that if we were ready in this country to follow such dictates 

 of science in sanitary measures as are of known efficiency, we 

 could secure their birthright of long life and health to a large 

 proportion of that forty per cent of all the people who, as sta- 

 tistics show, are now destined to perish from preventable infec- 

 tious maladies. 



The means by which individuals and health boards may real- 

 ize the possibilities for human weal so clearly indicated in the 

 newly won lore of preventive medicine I need not here recount. 

 They are easily enough learned as soon as the conviction of their 

 importance has grown to a fixed purpose of action. 



The scope of this address does not permit me to dwell upon 

 the really wonderful degree of accuracy with which the educated 

 and experienced physician of to-day can detect abnormal condi- 

 tions in the varied cellular structures of the living body, nor 

 upon the clear conception which he may acquire of morbid states 

 and processes in situations physically inaccessible. He can rec- 

 ognize what groups of hidden cells are faltering in their work, 

 are struggling under burdens, or in what way the co-ordinating 

 mechanisms are failing in their tasks ; and now in one way, now 

 in another, and not most often with drugs, as so many think, can 

 he tide the halting mechanism over its hour of stress. The cause 

 of the disturbance may be removed, rest secured, pain assuaged, 

 perverted function set right, and even for a time the aged, worn- 

 out mechanism encouraged to prolong its task. And if the physi- 

 cian can not so frequently as we would wish guide to the happiest 

 issue the healing forces over which the human frame has gained 

 control, it is certain that, other things being equal, his success is 

 assured just in proportion to his accurate practical knowledge of 

 the delicate mechanism which he is seeking to repair, and his 

 comprehension of the nature of the life forces which he must in 

 the right way and at the right moment aid, and with which he 

 must as certainly not unwisely interfere. 



In these hurried glimpses of only a limited phase of medicine, 

 it is most significant that there is no talk of humors and auras 

 and vital spirits, nor of illusive and intangible fancies such as for 

 centuries held sway in fields once ruled by demons and angry 

 gods, but of definite things which we can see and handle and 

 measure. Herein, to my thinking, lies the heart of our achieve- 

 ment and the brightest promise for the future. 



