1 66 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



ecclesiastics, after inculcating as a pious duty the murder, 

 torture and maltreatment of heretics and witches, hold up 

 their hands in horror at the brutalities practised by nobles 

 and kings on those who differed from their convictions on 

 details of fiscal and social economy. Quis tulerit Gracchos de 

 seditione querentes ? 



Perhaps also in the not distant future we may see the 

 medical profession finally discard that subtly hierarchic attitude 

 — as though "angels listen when they speak" — which, whilst 

 it impresses so profoundly the female portion of their clientele, 

 accords ill with their position as men of science. The advisa- 

 bility of some such change of attitude is the more urgent 

 since Herbert Spencer had the temerity to allege a common 

 cradle in primitive times for physicians and priests. Indeed, 

 did not the clergy in comparatively recent times monopolise 

 with octopus grip the art of medicine? and did not the 

 Archbishop of Canterbury confer the degree of M.D. so late 

 as 1858? Unless care be taken, evil-disposed anthropologists 

 may trace back sacerdotal leanings amongst modern doctors 

 to the thaumaturgics of the primitive medicine-men. After 

 the doffing of the priestly biretta, and the adoption of a 

 mental attitude more in accordance with the motto Niillius in 

 verba, we may perhaps no longer find medical men, when 

 writing to support a new theory of eye-strain, not daring to 

 publish their names ; nor one well-known man of science 

 describing "the attitude of doctors to everything new as 

 pitiful, not to say disgraceful " ; and another affirming them 

 to be in matters of science "just as ' non-receptive to fresh 

 evidence as the average solicitor or merchant." 



Indeed with this altered outlook the very title of doctor 

 may give way to some such designation as officer of health. 

 We have already officers of health in municipalities ; why not 

 private officers of health for individuals? Just as the former 

 (concerned primarily with microbic disease) feel as a stigma 

 a high rate of mortality amongst the citizens under their 

 charge, so will it be considered disgraceful in the latter to 

 possess a clientele distinguished by a low state of vitality or 

 prone to metabolic disease. Nor is this all. The public no 

 longer cringing before the least utterance of the priest- 

 physician, but accustomed in matters hygienic to think and 

 act for themselves under the guidance of mere men, but men 



