MODERN MEDICINE DOAN 513 



Epidemic disease is no respecter of geographic and racial boundaries, 

 or of economic, political, and social differences, and medical science 

 has had to look to and embrace the intellects capable of solving its 

 problems wherever they have appeared on the face of the earth. More- 

 over, medical leaders everywhere cooperate in an international health 

 cordon for the dissemination and application of this knowledge, as it 

 becomes available. With transportation and intercommunication in 

 the world today, such that a yellow-fever-carrying mosquito in an 

 airplane wing on the west coast of Africa this morning, may tomorrow 

 be either in continental Europe or South America, and mayhap the 

 next day on our own eastern seaboard, one cannot evade the reality 

 of the imminence of invasion by disease, even though there be some 

 difference of opinion as to the immediate significance of such feats, with 

 reference to other more obvious forms of invasion. 



We may agree, perhaps, then, that one of the most important func- 

 tions being subserved by medical science in the present day is its exem- 

 plification of the necessity for, and its demonstration of the ways and 

 means of organization and administration toward, cooperative effort 

 within the nation and between nations. I need only cite the White 

 House Conference on Child Health and Protection during President 

 Hoover's administration, which resulted in the pooling and critical 

 analysis of our scant information in this basic field and the defining of 

 objectives, which since have been methodically and intelligently and 

 cooperatively pursued; or the activities during the past decade under 

 the Research Committee of the National Tuberculosis Association, 

 which has integrated and correlated the research programs in some 

 14 universities, 3 research institutes, and 2 large pharmaceutical firms, 

 directed toward the better understanding and control, by treatment 

 and prevention, of this great white plague; or the diversified activi- 

 ties and integrating functions of the National Research Council and 

 the A. A. A. S., of which this Ohio Academy of Science is a worthy 

 satelite, for the cross-fertilization of scientific ideas in the broadest 

 sense; or the nation-wide programs for venereal disease and cancer 

 control which are being inaugurated at the present time in this country 

 after the successful mass application of present medical knowledge to 

 these identical problems of disease in Britain and the Scandinavian 

 countries; or the American, British, and League of Nations cooperat- 

 ing committees on the study and control of chronic arthritis, represent- 

 ing a group of crippling, painful, and economically hazardous diseases, 

 which are increasingly challenging the health and happiness of civilized 

 peoples; or the first international conference on fever therapy held in 

 New York City last month with official representatives from the Min- 

 istries of Health of 16 countries; or the International Physiological 

 Congress meeting in Boston 2 years ago, and the International Asso- 

 ciation of Geographic Pathology meeting in Stockholm this summer 



