526 PEDIATRICS 



. Conclusions 



Pedology is the science of the young. The young are the future 

 makers and owners of the world. Their physical, intellectual, and 

 moral condition will decide whether the globe shall be more Cossack 

 or more Republican, more criminal or more righteous. For their 

 education and training and capabilities, the physician, mainly the 

 pediatrist, as the representative of medical science and art, should 

 become responsible. Medicine is concerned with the new individual 

 before he is born, while he is being born, and after. Heredity and 

 the health of the pregnant mother are the physician's concern. 

 The regulation of labor laws, factory legislation, and the prohibi- 

 tion of marriages of epileptics, syphilitics, and criminals are some 

 of his preventive measures to secure a promising progeny. To him 

 belongs the watchful care of the production and distribution of 

 foods. He has to guard the school period from sanitary and educa- 

 tional points of view, for heart and muscle and brain are of equal 

 value. It is in infancy and childhood, before the dangerous period 

 of puberty sets in, that the character is formed, altruism inculcated, 

 or criminality fostered. If there be in the commonwealth any man 

 or any class of men with great possibilities and responsibilities it is 

 the physician. It is not enough, however, to work at the individual 

 bedside and in a hospital. In the near or dim future, the pedia- 

 trist, the physician, is to sit in and control school boards, health 

 departments, and legislatures. He is the legitimate adviser to the 

 judge and the jury, and a seat for the physician in the councils of 

 the Republic is what the people have a right to demand. Before 

 all that can be accomplished, however, let the individual physi- 

 cian not forget what he owes to the community now. Mainly to 

 the young men amongst us I should say, do not forget your obli- 

 gations as citizens. When we are told by Lombroso that there is 

 no room in politics for an honest man, I tell you it is time for the 

 physician to participate in politics, never to miss any of his public 

 duties, and thereby make it what sometimes it is reputed not to 

 be in modern life honorable. A life spent in the service of man- 

 kind, be our sphere large or narrow, is well spent. And never stop 

 working. Great results demand great exertions, possibly sacrifices. 

 After all, when everything in science and politics that now is our 

 ideal shall be accomplished while we live or after we shall be gone, 

 we shall still leave to our progeny new problems. 



