CURING BY COMBATING THE CAUSE. 289 



or as antiseptics or disinfectants upon the par- 

 asites. At present, many physicians, reject- 

 ing the good together with the bad, in their 

 condemnation of the extravagances just de- 

 scribed, would ban also the sound scientific 

 principle ; some of them discard the use of 

 chemical substances altogether, a proceeding 

 which as I should like to prove definitely, has 

 gone too far. 



Since it has become clear lately that sur- 

 geons, in spite of antisepsis and even in spite 

 of the possibility, as Bergmann expressed 

 it, of disguising gross stupidity under the 

 " mantle of Lister," are beginning once more 

 to be truly modest and that too especially as 

 concerns parasitic processes in the body, the 

 physician also is being compelled to pay at- 

 tention to various auxiliary factors. Military 

 surgery estimated correctly the true import- 

 ance of certain general hygienic factors of cure 

 such as fresh air and good food at a time when 

 internal medicine was still far removed from 

 this position. Lately there has been a similar 

 change in the current. For example it is 

 known that in carcinomatous and sarcomatous 

 tumors early operations often prevent the 

 generalization of infection and so far can effect 

 a cure. But it is found also that an operation 

 frequently occasions a general infection in cases 

 19 



