THE OUTLOOK FOR HUMAN HEALTH 165 



vigorous their youth, suffer later on from such complaints as 

 gout, rheumatism, Bright's disease, or arterio-sclerosis. Nor 

 will the man in the street greatly laud a learned discussion 

 on the enzymes of the stomach when such discussion wholly 

 fails to point the way whereby he may assuage the pangs of 

 dyspepsia ; he does not yearn so much after a knowledge of 

 the histological changes of the kidney in Bright's disease as 

 a method by which this disease may be safely avoided. To 

 many sufferers such discussions must appear as futile as the 

 historic controversy of Homoous and Homoious, and as empty 

 of benefit to tortured humanity. What kind of opinion should 

 we entertain of gardeners who wiled away their time in 

 acrimonious discussions on the diseases of their plants, and 

 whose utmost endeavour extended only to the temporary cure 

 of their distempers or to the alleviation of their sufferings ? 

 Surely we would say : " Study the environment — using the 

 word in the broadest sense — of your plants and so regulate 

 it that these diseases become at least as rare as theft and 

 dishonesty in a well-ordered community. In neighbouring 

 gardens we discern whole masses of plants free from those 

 disorders which plague the specimens under your care ; go 

 and examine wherein consist the conditions through which 

 these plants enjoy robust health whilst yours are diseased. 

 These conditions undoubtedly exist; it is for you by patient 

 inquiry and logical induction to particularise them." 



And should such a transfiguration of the medical profession 

 dawn on an expectant public, perhaps not the least of its 

 concomitant advantages may be the disappearance of that dark 

 horde of quack medicines which in season and out of season 

 intrude themselves on our unwilling attention. To the cynic 

 few subjects tend more to the gaiet}' of nations than the 

 execrations and anathemas which the orthodox doctor never 

 wearies of hurling at his heretic brother, the vendor of secret 

 remedies. After the profession has practised the treatment of 

 disease for many centuries by the empirical use ol drugs, and 

 thoroughly inoculated the public with the belief that therein 

 lay at once their certain, facile and sole hope of physical 

 salvation, what wonder that others, doubtless ignorant and 

 mercenary — cela va sans dire — should trade on the habit of 

 mind thus engendered, and "jump the claim " of the orthodox 

 practitioners ? With just as much logic did the mediaeval 



