200 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, 



for paving and for other purposes. Students in zoology and in 

 botany must help the farmer. Thus the American people are 

 provided with comforts and luxuries. Money is getting plenty 

 and is being freely paid to high priced doctors and to trained 

 nurses. The common people are learning sanitation, thus 

 health is promoted and life prolonged. 



I am a new member of the Academy of Sciences, and represent 

 the medical profession. I embrace this opportunity to give 

 evidence that physicians are becoming more and more scientific 

 — hence more skillful. The physician who is not well educated, 

 who cannot use the microscope and who does not persist in the 

 study of medicine is not fit to practice in this one of the learned 

 professions. 



The microscope has long been used in medical colleges by 

 students in physiology and in the examination of post 

 mortem specimens. Now this all important instrument is 

 being used daily by the practitioner in diagnosticating disease 

 of the kidneys, of the luugs and of other organs. Physicians 

 no longer put money into leather covered books. The cheapest 

 bound books will outlive their usefulness. In order to succeed 

 in the practice of medicine and surgery nowadays the physician 

 must be familiar with the contents of new books and take time 

 to glance through the latest medical journals. The microscope 

 is as necessary to the study of some diseases as the telescope 

 is to the obtaining an exact knowledge of the stars 



Dr. Edwin Klebs of Chicago, formerly of Zurich, discovered 

 the disease germ which is peculiar to diphtheria. Since this 

 same germ was independently detected, identified, and utilized 

 by Loefiler, one of our most famous bacteriologists, the medical 

 profession has decided to call this germ peculiar to diphtheria 

 the Klebs-Loeffler bacillus. While this germ may be found 

 occasionally in the throats of persons who are not sick, and 

 disease of the throat is not diphtheria unless these particular 

 germs are present, the causative agent of diphtheria is this 

 germ. Each case comes from some other case, and this disease 

 is highly contagious. The period of infection is from two to 

 seven days — oftenest two days. The constitutional symptoms 

 of diphtheria are an elevation in the body temperature, slight 

 chilliness, and aching in the bones. In mild cases the indis- 

 position is not sudden nor well marked at first. The local 

 symptoms are swelling about the neck and soreness of the 

 throat. 



