156 
POPULAE SCIENCE NEWS. 
[OCTOBEU, 1891. 
fl?edi«ine and l^baPFnaet}. 
THE FUTURE OF MEDICINE. 
Within the last quarter or half century the 
increased interest taken in the study of the natu- 
ral and physical sciences has had a most valuable 
indirect influence upon the physician's and sur- 
geon's art, and has done much to lift it out of the 
semi-barbarous condition of a hundred or more 
years ago, and elevate it to the dignity of a true 
science. Organic chemistry has furnished a large 
number of new and valuable therapeutic sub- 
stances, including those greatest of all blessings 
to suflfering humanity — ether and chloroform. 
The microscope has revealed a new world, inhab- 
ited by the disease-producing bacteria; and, in 
many cases, the chemist has provided germicides 
which can destroy these dangerous little organ- 
isms without injuring the more resistant living 
tissues in which they exist. The study of hy- 
giene, sanitation, and the prevention of disease 
has been given the importance it deserves ; the 
value of careful nursing has been recognized ; 
while, by the aid of modern antiseptic precau- 
tions, the surgeon can perform the most astonish- 
ing operations, and worli directly upon organs 
which, not many years ago, it would have been 
considered fatal to expose to the light or air or to 
interfere with in any way. 
And yet, notwithstanding all this, there is, as 
has been aptly said, "more of hope than of 
achievement in all schools of medical practice."' 
Many diseases, including some of the simplest 
and most common, remain entirely beyond the 
skill of the physician. To say nothing of more 
serious troubles, who has ever cured a cold in the 
head, or prevented an attack of seasickness? The 
most successful endeavors of the physician are to 
conserve the strength and vitality of his patient 
and allow Nature to work out the cure in her own 
mysterious way. 
Still there is no cause for discouragement, and 
we may confidently expect that the future will 
exceed the past in the value and importance of 
the discoveries which it will unfold. Already one 
of the most fatal and loathsome of diseases — the 
small-pox — has been practically abolished from 
communities enlightened enough to protect them- 
selves by vaccination, and we have every reason 
to believe that we may yet be able to protect our- 
selves from the contagion of other acute infectious 
diseases, like diphtheria, scarlet fever, or the less 
dreaded measles and mumps. 
Consumption, the most prevalent and fatal of 
all diseases, is the subject of earnest investigation 
by hundreds of patient students, and a beginning 
has at least been made towards a rational and 
effective method of treatment. Koch's tuberculin, 
while apparently a failure practically, has at least 
served a good ' purpose in showing that agents 
exist which have a selective action upon diseased 
tissue; and the fact that an inoculation may be 
made which will have no effect upon a healthy 
person, but will exert a profound influence upon 
one suffering from a certain disease, is of the most 
supreme importance. It is by no means a vain 
hope that consumption may yet be made as amen- 
able to treatment as many other diseases. 
The science of bacteriologj' is as yet in its in- 
fancy, and we do not thoroughly understand the 
exact relation of bacteria to the diseases which 
they cause or accompany; but enough is already 
known to materially modify our conceptions of 
the long list of diseases with which they are con- 
nected, and the diminishing mortality from such 
diseases is full of promise for the future. With 
an increased knowledge of sanitation and a more 
careful attention to the purity of food, water, and 
air, and the prompt and complete removal and de- 
struction of waste matters from our dwellings and 
communities, we may hope to entirely avoid the 
recurrence of devastating epidemics, such as have 
sometimes swept over our land, and the inhabi- 
tants of New Orleans or Memphis may have as 
little cause to fear the occurrence of yellow fever 
or cholera as those of New York or Boston. 
In obstetrical practice we may expect an unu- 
sual advance. Thanks to the discovery of anes- 
thetics, the pain of parturition can be wholly or 
partially avoided; and with modern antiseptic 
precautions, the septic conditions peculiar to such 
cases are much less common. But the mortality 
is still greater than it should be, and, although the 
human organism has been too unevenly developed 
from pre-existing forms for us to expect that par- 
turition will ever become the simple physiological 
process that it is in the lower animals, it is almost 
certain that the dangers and discomforts will be 
materially lessened, and that the growth and en- 
trance of a new life into the world will be much 
less pathological in its nature than at present. 
Not the least important factor in this result will 
be the sweeping away of the cloud of absurd 
superstitions which has so long overshadowed 
such cases, and from the influence of « hich too 
many otherwise skillful and intelligent pliysicians 
are by no means wholly free. 
In the domain of surgery no limit can be placed 
upon our expectations. Already the brain, kid- 
neys, intestinal canal, the pelvic organs, and, in 
fact, nearly all the important organs of the body, 
have been successfully subjected to operative in- 
terference. Nothing seems to be able to bar the 
progress in this direction but the limits of human 
skill and dexterity, and the extent to wliich the 
structure of an organ may be interfered with 
without the destruction of its functional activity. 
In the obscure and distressing class of troubles 
comprehended under the general name of nervous 
diseases, modern investigations in psychology 
have given us valuable hints for treatment; and 
it is probable that in future years cases of per- 
verted function of the nervous system, uncom- 
plicated with organic changes, will be treated 
much more successfully than at present. The 
"faith-cure" has shown that diseases of the im- 
agination may be successfully treated by imagi- 
nary remedies; and the subject of hypnotism, 
obscured as it is by uncertainty and deception, 
contains a germ of truth which may yet bear 
precious fruit. That there is something beyond 
the brain itself, to which the cousciousiu'ss of life 
and existence is due, seems to he certaui, but its 
nature or methods of action appear to be impossi- 
ble of comprehension. 
We have, then, every reason to expect in futuie 
generations a longer life and a liigher standard of 
bodily health. Diseases now so much dreaded 
will either disappear or be readily susceptible to 
treatment, the results of the inevitable accidents 
incidental to human activity will be removed or 
mitigated by increased surgical skill, and the sum 
of human happiness greatly increased. It must 
be remembered, however, that the same knowl- 
edge which gives health and long life to the aver- 
age man will also preserve to maturity those 
children born with the seeds of disease already 
implanted in them, thus allowing them to be 
transmitted to their posterity. It would be im- 
possible and inhuman for civilized man to carry 
out a scheme of natural selection, and only pre- 
serve the most vigorous of the race to be the 
parents of succeeding generations ; and, as long 
as man's constitution is so much out of harmony _™ 
with its civilized environment as at present, dis- 9 
ease and suft'ering will remain among us. But, 
even under the unusual conditions of civilized 
life, both physical and mental development will 
continue to take place, and there will ever be an 
increasing number of those who will live out the 
full measure of their days in health and strength, 
and finally leave the world with as little con- 
sciousness of fear or pain as when they entered it. 
iSpeclally Compiled (or Popular Science News.] 
MONTHLY SUMMARY OF MEDICAL 
PROGRESS. 
BY MAURICE D. CLAKKE, M. D. 
FoKEiGN Bodies in the Aiu-passages.— The 
entrance of foreign bodies into the lower air-pas- 
sages is not a very rare accident, especially in 
children, but it is always an alarming one. The 
danger depends, however, largely upon the size 
and character of the foreign substances. These 
are commonly fragments of bone, kernels of fruits 
and nuts, spears of grain, beans, peas, nut-shells, 
small stones, and coins. As the result of vomit- 
ing, particles of food may enter the trachea, this 
accident being especially common in children and 
imbeciles (Uiegel). Fragments of pharyngeal 
polyps, and of tonsils, teeth, pus, blood, and 
other res ilts of local disease or surgical work in 
the upper air-passagos may pass through the rinia 
glottidis into the trachea. 
Bryant records a case in which a piece of meat 
became impacted in the larynx, causing instant 
death. 
Not long ago Wharton reported a case of a 
child of four who had got a large brass shawl- 
pin into its trachea which set up a fibrinous in- 
flammation. 
A bridegroom inhaled a r.abbit-bone at his wed- 
ding-dinner. His honeymoon was interrupted by 
a combination of laryngo-traclieotomy and artifi- 
cially induced emesis. St.' Louis children seem to 
have a fondness for getting cocker -burs into the 
larynx. One physician. Dr. Glasgow, has seen 
and removed three of them. A patient of M. 
Godet's inhaled a leech and spat blood for twenty 
days, when he was relieved by a thyrotomy. 
It is well known that in rare instances a foreign 
body may remain in the lungs for years and cause 
no symptoms. Dupuytreu related a c.ise in which 
a coin was retained for ten years, and Professor 
Gross had observi-d a case in which a bone was 
coughed up sixty years after it was inhaled ! 
Such cases as these, liowever, mostly belong to 
the oilier literature, before the time of the laryn- 
goscope, and an element of doubt hangs about 
them. In recent tinns, Vainossy has reported the 
case of a tailor who got a needle into his lower 
air-passages and retaiued it tliere tor ten mouths, 
when it was coughed up. 
Foreign bodies in the air-passages are always 
very serious things for the patient, and call for 
courage, promptitude, and skill on the part of the 
surgeon. According to Mr. Durham's statistics, 
which include ();^(> cases, 41 per cent, die when no 
operation is performed, and 23 percent, when sur- 
gical interference is undeitaken. 
Some addilioii to our therapeutic resources in 
late years has lieen furnished by cocaine and by 
the use of the O'Dwyer tubes, as shown in a case 
reported by Sletzger. 
The surgery of the trachea and bronchi has also 
become more perfi-ct, so that most cases of for- 
eign bodies in these parts can be successfully 
dealt with. The case of Dr. Roth well was one of 
exceptional difliculty, owing to the fact that the 
