212 ANNUAL REPORT OF, THE Off. Doo. 



the habits of sea cows. If bis commands were not instantly com- 

 plied with, be well understood tbe value of threshing in enforcing 

 them. He was alwa3S able to recognize old Father Neptune by 

 his pitchfork. If, therefore, there is anything in the doctrine of 

 heredity, and I presume all cattle breeders are satisfied that there 

 is, have 1 not made good my claim to an inherited aptitude for agri- 

 cultural pursuits? Without further prelude, let me call your at- 

 tention for a few moments to the subject of 



PREVENTIVE MEDICINE. 



Preventive medicine is unquestionably the medicine of the 

 future. The physician of the future will no longer feel that he 

 has done his full duty when his patient has recovered from typhoid 

 fever, or the surgeon when he has cut off a leg. He will be some- 

 thing more and higher than a mere prescriber of pills and po- 

 tions. The oldest nation on the face of the earth is the wisest in 

 its initial thought on this subject, although its arrested develop- 

 ment has not permitted it to work out the idea satisfactorily in 

 detail. The duty of the Chinese physician is rather to keep his 

 patrons well than to cure them when sick. It has even been as- 

 serted that his salary ceases, if, indeed, his head is not cut off, when 

 his patron becomes a patient. The whole trend of modern medicine 

 is towards the discovery of the causes of diseases and their avoid- 

 ance, elimination or destruction. The ounce of prevention is easily 

 the winning horse in its race with the pound of cure. The subject 

 naturally divides itself into tw^o sub-divisions — preventive medicine 

 as related to the individual, which is called personal hj^giene, and 

 preventive medicine as related to the people at large, to which are 

 applied the titles of public hygiene, public health or state medicine. 

 It is to the latter that we will, with your permission, devote a few 

 minutes' consideration. 



PUBLIC HYGIENE AND STATE MEDICINE. 



No sooner do individuals begin to group themselves into com- 

 munities than the most dominant inincipal of human nature, selfish- 

 ness, asserts itself in the effort of each to throw upon his neighbor 

 the duty of maintaining healthful conditions in all property which 

 is held in common; while, at the same time, the proximity of dwell- 

 ings renders it vastly more necessary to strictly observe domestic 

 sanitary precautions. Each man waits for his neighbor to clean 

 out an offensive gutter or ditch, or remove a putrefying carcass 

 from an open lot. ''What is everybody's business is nobody's busi- 

 ness." No man is willing to go to more expense or trouble than his 

 neighbor in keeping his own premises in a clean, healthful condi- 

 tion. Every man maintaining an industry disposes of its waste 

 products, however offensive, in such manner as shall involve the 



