384 



NATURE 



[December 2, 1915. 



the universe except an insignificant stratum of the 

 little earth. This picture is only a moderately unfair 

 view of life as it existed on our planet four hundred 

 years ago, before the days of the telescope, the spectro- 

 scope, and the photographic plate, and before the days 

 of freedom of speech and thought. The earth is no 

 longer flat, supported on the back of a great turtle 

 which rests upon nothing; it is round, and we know 

 why ; and it revolves around the sun in exact obedience 

 to law. The stars are not lanterns hung out in the 

 sky by angels at night; they are suns, hundreds of 

 millions of suns, each on the average comparable in 

 size to our sun. Exists there an intelligent man in 

 the world whose thoughts, every day and many times 

 a day, are not adapted to these facts? Who can 

 estimate the value of this knowledge to the human 

 race? 



We have not yet seen little earths revolving around 

 any stars except our own, nor do we know that 

 intelligent beings live upon such planets and are look- 

 ing down towards our system and seeing our sun as 

 a little star in their night sky; but everybody now 

 holds as absurd the view that our star is the onlv one 

 of the hundreds of millions of stars which has little 

 planets revolving around it, or that our earth is the 

 only one that is inhabited by intelligent life. Can 

 there be a more inspiring thought than that intelli- 

 gent beings are probably living here and there through- 

 out the universe, in whatever direction we may look? 

 The spectroscope has shown that the chemical elements 

 which compose the earth are also the constituents of 

 our sun and of the other suns. We have no reason 

 to doubt that the chemistry of the earth is the chem- 

 istry of the universe. The spectroscope and the photo- 

 graphic plate are telling us of the close relationship 

 of the nebulae to those stars which we call the youngest 

 stars, of the young stars to the middle-aged stars, 

 and of the middle-aged stars to the old stars. We 

 cannot doubt that the stars are growing older, as we 

 are growing older, as everything in nature is changing 

 and growing older, and in accordance with the same 

 laws which govern the changes on the earth. The 

 student of double stars finds that the movements of 

 the two components of a distant double star system 

 are in accordance with the law of gravitation. Every 

 particle of our experience leads us to believe that the 

 reign of the laws which control our everyday affairs 

 is universal ; that the strict relationship of cause and 

 effect applies throughout the stellar system. Does 

 not this broad and stable foundation give valued con- 

 fidence to those who are building the structure of the 

 other sciences, the structure of everyday life, the 

 structure of civilisation? 



It is now quite difficult to find a subject that is not 

 being studied scientifically somewhere by somebody. 

 It is this fact which accounts for the remarkable pro- 

 gress_ of civilisation in the past half-century, and 

 especially in the last thirty years. With rare excep- 

 tions, all important interests are pulling together for 

 the welfare of mankind, and their efforts are, effective 

 because they are advancing over the firm foundation 

 of scientific method. Every branch of science, every 

 nation's literature and art, every element of "religion 

 pure and undefiled," every element of commerce con- 

 ducted upon the dignified basis of mutual respect and 

 mutual profit of buyer and seller, is a contributor to 

 the forward movement. It would be a pleasure to 

 support this thesis by reference to definite contribu- 

 tions in many subjects, but time is available for onlv 

 a few accomplishments of the past and a few needs 

 of the future. 



The discoveries In preventive and curative medicine 

 undoubtedly rank amongst the most valued contribu- 

 tions to civilisation in the entire range of scientific 



NO. 2405, VOL. 96] 



research. I am disposed to place the names of Louis 

 Pasteur, Joseph Lister, and Robert Koch very high 

 on the list of the world's great benefactors. Pasteur 

 was a professor of chemistry whose first investigations 

 lay in the domain of abstract chemistry, and his 

 subsequent successes, which put the world in the way 

 of preventing and eradicating all infectious diseases, 

 proceeded naturally from his application of the methods 

 of research in pure chemistry to the problems of fer- 

 mentation. He proved that wine, beer, and milk fer- 

 ment and turn sour because minute organisms, always 

 present in the atmosphere, invade these liquids, mul- 

 tiply enormously, and corrupt them. Break the skin 

 of the grape, the atmospheric parasites enter the 

 wound, and fermentation develops. Exclude the air, 

 or destroy the germs in the air, the wound in the 

 vegetable structure remains clean and healthy in- 

 definitely. 



These discoveries by Pasteur attracted the immediate 

 attention of Lister, who applied them in surgical 

 operations. Antiseptic surgery, one of the most 

 glorious works of man, is the result. 



Pasteur proceeded upon the theory that just as fer- 

 mentation is the work of foreign organisms, so certain 

 diseases of animal life are the work of microbes which 

 have entered the body of the sufferer. His first suc- 

 cesses in preventive medicine related to cholera in the 

 French fowls, and anthrax in the French cattle and 

 sheep. His treatment reduced the death-rate of the 

 fowls and animals from about lo per cent, to fewer 

 than I per cent. The great British authority, Thomas 

 Huxley, estimated that the savings in these sources 

 of wealth to the French nation in two decades were 

 sufficient to pay the war indemnity of 187 1. Proceed- 

 ing further along the same lines, Pasteur inaugurated 

 the curative treatment of hydrophobia. The fatalities 

 from this horrible malady dropped suddenly from 

 nearly 100 per cent, to fewer than i per cent. Do we 

 realise that this was only thirty years ago? 



In the next three decades followed the preventive 

 and curative treatments by several renowned investi- 

 gators for diphtheria, tetanus, yellow fever, malaria, 

 spinal meningitis, typhoid fever, and other maladies. 

 Progress has been notable in the treatment of tuber- 

 culosis, bubonic plague, cholera, typhus fever, and 

 sleeping sickness. There are faith and hope in the 

 future as to preventives and cures for tuberculosis, 

 scarlet fever, measles, and cancer. The practice of ex- 

 treme cleanliness and the use of anaesthetics in surgery 

 have enabled surgeons to reach hitherto inaccessible 

 oarts of the body, to reduce the death-rate enormously, 

 to diminish the suffering of the patient, and to afford 

 health and strength after healing. Wonderful opera- 

 tions upon the brain, upon intestines, upon severed 

 nerves, veins, and arteries are now performed. The 

 general health of communities has been improved by 

 the theory and practice of cleanliness and fresh air. 

 The average length of life has increased by many 

 vears since the principles discovered by Pasteur have 

 been applied. The increase has been greatest for 

 -hildren and women and those not in robust health, 

 but it has also been great for those healthy men who 

 have been accepted as risks by the life insurance com- 

 panies. Life insurance business has been based upon 

 mortalitv tables which represented the expectation of 

 life under the relatively unhealthy conditions which 

 existed a half-century ago. Those tables do not fit 

 modern conditions. The number of deaths is now 

 smaller than the insurance tables predict. This means 

 that the -actual cost of insurance is correspondins/ly 

 reduced. The statistics for the saving from this 

 source are not readily available. It can be said, how- 

 ever,, that the increase in the duration of the lives of 

 those healthy men who carry insurance, during the 



