410 EMERGENCE OF MODERN MEDICINE— ALVAREZ 



this fact. As he said, if his customers were ever to hear that he was 

 an educated physician they would all leave him, and he would have 

 to go back to poverty. 



MANY PERSONS VOTE FOR QUACKERY 



In States which use the initiative and the referendum, the people 

 commonly vote down laws designed to debar ignoramuses from the 

 practice of medicine, and sometimes they wiU go even further. Thus, 

 in a certain city of this land, when a wealthy man presented the citi- 

 zens with a much-needed hospital, they accepted the gift with the 

 donor's pro^^so that the place be maintained always as a class A 

 institution, that is, one in which only reputable and licensed physicians 

 are allowed to see patients. But soon the few back-manipulators in 

 town were protesting volubly that as taxpayers they had a right to 

 practice in the city hospital, and so the people went to the polls again 

 and voted to break their covenant with the donor and to turn the 

 building over to the back-rubbers. Hence, when last I had news of 

 the situation, the regular physicians were out, and the town was back 

 where it was before, \vithout a satisfactory hospital. 



Actually, the presence of this large group of people in some com- 

 munities, unappreciative of, ormilitantly hostile to, scientific medicine 

 makes it impossible for health oflBcers to stamp out diseases such as 

 smallpox and diphtheria, against which, for years, science has offered 

 adequate means of protection. 



MANY GO TO IRREGULAR PRACTITIONERS BECAUSE REGULAR 

 MEDICINE FAILED TO HELP 



Now I know that there are several reasons for the great faith many 

 people have in irregular practice by poorly trained and inexperienced 

 men. I hate to spend time now in talking about these reasons but I 

 fear that if I do not explain why I am not impressed with the cures 

 worked by irregular practitioners and why I do not favor the licen- 

 sure of such men as physicians, some of you will think me hopelessly 

 biased and intolerant. I feel myself somewhat in the position of an 

 astronomer invited here to describe the emergence of modern astron- 

 omy from ancient astrology. Knowing that many of you believe in 

 astrology, he would not dare to speak disparagingly of it without going 

 on to explain why he thought it a form of quackery which should have 

 been left behind in the dark ages. He would feel all the more like 

 giving this explanation if the present-day belief in astrology were 

 hampering the development of astronomy in the great observatories 

 of the world, much as the widespread faith in quackery is now blocking 

 the efforts of health officers to eradicate disease. 



