120 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



iiig field of work. It is upon the Iiidiau Burial Mounds and Shell 

 Heaps near Pensacola, Fla. 



The medical and scientific societies of -which Dr. Sternberg is 

 a member include the American Public Health Association, of 

 which he is also an ex-president (1886); the American Association 

 of Physicians; the American Physiological Society; the American 

 Microscopical Society, of which he is a vice-president; the Ameri- 

 can Association for the Advancement of Science, of which he is a 

 Fellow; the Xew York Academy of Medicine (a Fellow); and the 

 Association of Military Surgeons of the United States (president 

 in 1896). He is a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society of 

 London; an honorary member of the Fpidemiological Society of 

 London, of the Royal xicademy of Medicine of Rome, of the Acad- 

 emy of Medicine of Rio de Janeiro, of the American Academy of 

 Medicine, of the French Society of Hygiene, etc. ; was President of 

 the Section on Military Medicine and Surgery of the Pan-American 

 Congress; was a Fellow by courtesy in Johns Hopkins University, 

 1885 to 1890; was President of the Biological Society of "Wash- 

 ington in 1896, and of the American Medical Association in 1S97; 

 and has been designated Honorary President of the Thirteenth In- 

 ternational Medical Congress, which is to meet in Paris in 1900. 

 He received the degree of LL. D. from the University of Michigan 

 in 1894, and from Brown University in 1897. 



Dr. Sternberg's view of the right professional standard of the 

 physician is well expressed in the sentiment, "To maintain our stand- 

 ing in the estimation of- the educated classes we must not rely upon 

 our diplomas or upon our membership in medical societies. Work 

 and worth are what count." He does not appear to be attached 

 to any particular school, but, as his Red Cross ^N^otes biographer 

 says, " has placed himself in the crowd ' who have been moving 

 forward upon the substantial basis of scientific research, and who, 

 if characterized by any distinctive name, should be called the New 

 School of Scientific Medicine.'' He holds that if our practice was 

 in accordance with our knowledge many diseases would disappear; 

 he sees no room for creeds or patents in medicine. He is willing 

 to acknowledge the right to prescribe cither a bread pill or a leaden 

 bullet. But if a patient dies from diphtheria because of a failure 

 to administer a proper remedy, or if infection follows from dirty 

 fingers or instruments, if a practitioner carelessly or ignorantly 

 transfers infection, he believes he is not fit to practice medicine. 

 . . . He rejects every theory or dictum that has not been clearly 

 demonstrated to him as an absolute truth." 



AVhile he is described as without assumption, Dr. Sternberg is 

 represented as being evidently in his headquarters as surgeon gen- 



