president's address — SECTION I. 2L9 



SECTION I. 



SANITARY SCIENCE AND 

 HYGIENE. 



ADDRESS BY THE PRESIDENT : W -**"*- J-^ 

 J. H. L. Cumpston. M.D., D.P.H.. F.SarSt^ ^ 





Director of Federal Quarantine. 



ACCURACY IN MEDICINE. 



A commouplace of topical rhetoric is the statement that all 

 science consists ultimately in accurate measurement. In the end, 

 this is as trne of medicine as it is of all other branches of 

 knowledge. The differentiation between various species of bacteria 

 or of protozca is made t<j a large extent on their transverse and 

 axial measurement expressed in microns ; instruments and physical 

 methods of precision are used in recording the movements and 

 sounds of the heart, the electrical currents generated in the heart 

 during its activity, and the pressure of the blood in the arteries 

 and the veins. 



Chemical methods of analysis are used for determining the rate 

 of calcium exchange in the body: the excretion of nitrogen, the 

 amount of iodine m the thyroid, and the completeness of gastric 

 or duodenal digestion. 



A venture has even been made in the lise of methods of accurate 

 measurement in the less tangible realms of neurology and 

 psychology. The amount of nerve exhaustion in now more or 

 less accurately n'easured, while recently a claim has been made 

 that electric currents generated in the body under the stress of 

 emotion have been recorded. 



