430 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1937 



university authorities when they assure you that today laboratory 

 animals are well taken care of, and, when operated on, are always kept 

 under surgical anesthesia. 



SUMMARY 



In summing up, I would like to emphasize again that there are two 

 types of medical practice that have been with us from the earUcst 

 times: One, that of the witch doctor and his heirs, and the other, that 

 of the herb doctor and primitive surgeon and liis heirs. One group 

 relies on hocus pocus and some unprovable theory of disease; the other 

 group bases its practice on observation and experiment, and uses 

 every medical and surgical procedure of value ever discovered by man. 



Even today the old witch doctor and his heirs hold the confidence 

 of a large percentage of the population, and this fact greatly hampers 

 health officers in their work. Although scientific medicine is forging 

 rapidly ahead and working ever greater miracles of healing, it still 

 has to fight its way against opposition from the many people who have 

 been brought up to believe that diseases can best be treated by men 

 and women who have had little or no education in medicine. 



The story goes that once upon a time a man of God was treed b}'^ an 

 angry bear which started to climb up after him. At first the minister 

 said: "O Lord, help me," but as the bear kept climbing higher, he 

 finally praj'^ed: "O Lord, if you won't help me, at least don't help 

 the bear." And so I close with this plea: That while teachers of 

 medicine and investigators struggle to advance medical science and 

 to supply you and your children with ever better and abler and finer 

 physicians and with ever more efficient treatments for disease, will 

 you please refrain from helping those many persons who are always 

 trying to lower standards of medical education and licensure, and are 

 always trying to stop the work being carried on in the research labora- 

 tories. As Dr. John Abel, that grand old man of American medicine, 

 once said, "Greater even than the greatest discovery is to keep open 

 the way to future discoveries." 



