344 THE PKESENT ASPECT OF MEDICINE. 



extended system of means and arrangements will be provided 

 for the supply of the numerous and apparently trivial 

 conditions of recovery in the great majority of recoverable 

 cases. 



In the third place, while it must be admitted that the 

 means at present available for the alleviation of suffering 

 and for the prolongation of life in irrecoverable cases con- 

 stitute a large proportion of that benefit which medical art 

 confers on society, there appears to be, nevertheless, great 

 room for the discovery and application of means of allevia- 

 tion, and of methods of treatment applicable to such cases. 

 I do not refer merely to such cases as, from their severity, 

 render the sufferers entirely dependent on the care and 

 services of others, but to those numerous cases of all kinds, 

 in which, after what may be considered as recovery from the 

 original attack, the health continues impaired, or there is a 

 continuous tendency to relapse, or to consequent forms of 

 illness. The economy of the organism in such cases is very 

 different from what it was previous to the original attack. 

 Its wellbeing and duration, so far as these are attainable, 

 are dependent on different physiological conditions than 

 before — so different, that they may involve a total change in 

 the external relations of the individual. Hence, again, I 

 have no doubt that the same efficacious treatment, by physio- 

 logical means and appliances, of chronic and irrecoverable 

 disease will constitute a prominent feature of a more advanced 

 form of our art. 



If I have, in my previous statements, given the correct 

 interpretation of the present aspect of our professional 

 science, it would appear that while, in the first place, the 

 prolongation of life within its prescribed limits, the recovery 

 from disease when that is possible, and the alleviation of 

 bodily suffering, are each and all conditioned by ordinary 

 physiological laws ; and that as, in the second place, that 



