PRESIDENT 8 ADDRESS SECTION I. 223 



analysis of the urine and of the contents of the stomach is essential 

 to any accurate medical work, while it is now established that 

 diseases of the kidney and bladder often require special expensive 

 apparatus for a reliable diagnosis. 



All of which means that the doctor must have an X-ray outfit, 

 a bactericlcgical laboratory, a simple chemical laboratory, and an 

 elaborate, extensive, and very expensive set of special apparatus 

 and instruments, which, as Euclid is reported to have said fre- 

 quently, is absurd. 



It is absurd, in that a doctor's income will not be large enough 

 for him to begin to consider such expense, and in that if everv 

 doctor had the whole equipment, some of it would be only inter- 

 mittently used at long intervals, and a totally unnecessary duplica- 

 tion or multiplication would result. 



Moreover, if every doctor had this equipment, he would not be 

 able to use it, for, as has been pointed cut above, expertness in 

 any one special branch of medicine requires a lifetime of devotion 

 to' that branch. The X-ray specialist cannot be at the same time 

 a bacteriologist, and the general practitioner could not attempt the 

 whole ranges of subjects, even if he had the necessary apparatus, 

 without, at a very early stage in his career, giving a splendidly 

 disastrous illustration of that classical statement that " a little 

 knowledge is a dangerous thing." 



The argument may, at this point, be summarized. 



Medical science is very rapidly becoming more and more a 

 science of accurate observation, measurement, and record. The 

 medical profession io making an increasingly vigorous demand for 

 the means whereby they may make their art progressive in step 

 with the march of the science, both for the satisfying of their own 

 consciences and in the interests of their patients. The prevalent 

 gross ignorance of the mass of the public, with the resultant 

 absence of an enlightened public opinion on these' phases of medical 

 practice, has not produced any general recognition of the need 

 for any action. Everv medical man cannot possess the necessary 

 knowledge or the necessary equipment. 



What, then, is the remedy ? 



Logically, there are two things which must be done : the educa- 

 tion of the public to a proper conception of the urgent need for 

 accurate methods in medical diagnosis and treatment, and the 

 provision, within practicable access by all medical practitioners of 

 the equipment necessary for the employment of those accurate^ 

 methods. 



Quite recently, on another occasion, I have endeavoured to 

 express my view that the education of the public rests in the 

 hands of the medical profession. If the professiou set about it 



