204 



DISCOVERY 



en. 



laboratory where scientific research is being carried 

 on, often under harassing conditions and always 

 with inadequate recompense. The ordinary medical 

 practitioner, like the engineer, makes use of scientific 

 results for the benefit of mankind, but originates little 

 for himself. He is able and practical, good at diagnosis 

 and clever in manipulation, but withal an empiric, 

 wanting in scientific ideals and only very occasionally a 

 contributor to scientific knowledge. 



Every year an immense amount of time, labour and 

 money is consumed in dealing with the effects of the 

 various diseases to which humanity is liable, and in 

 attempts, more or less successful, to cure these effects, 

 while comparatively little is done toward preventing 

 them by the removal of their chief sources or primary 

 causes. The few brilliant examples which show such 

 striking success in the latter direction only serve to 

 throw into more prominent relief the magnitude of that 

 deplorable amount of loss in life, health and wealth 

 which is still waiting to be dealt with. 



It is a truism well recognised by medical men that 

 the soldier has much more to fear from the ravages of 

 disease than from the fire of the enemy. During the 

 South African war, the British Army lost nearly twice 

 as many men from preventible diseases, chiefly typhoid 

 fever, as it did from wounds received in battle. In the 

 Spanish -American war, there were twenty thousand men, 

 or one-sixth of the American force, laid by with typhoid. 

 On the other hand, scientific investigation into the cause 

 of beri-beri which had impaired the efficiency of the 

 Japanese fleet by almost 50 per cent, during previous 

 years resulted in the complete abolition of this disease 

 from the Japanese ships from 1886 to 1893, and not a 

 single case developed during the war with Russia, amidst 



