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NATURE 



[August 14, 1913 



THE INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL 

 CONGRESS. 



AFTER an interval of thirty-two years, the 

 International Medical Congress returned to 

 London, and was opened at the Albert Hall on 

 August 6 by Prince Arthur of Connaught on be- 

 half of the King. The number of members ran 

 far into the eighth thousand, as compared with 

 3182 a generation ago. Before this unprecedented 

 assemblage the foreign delegates, whose names are 

 given below, were presented to Prince Arthur, and 

 each said a few words, the fewest and most 

 appreciated, apparently, coming from Dr. Wu, 

 representing the Chinese Republic. After Sir 

 Edward Grey had welcomed the foreign members, 

 Sir Thomas Barlow, the president of the congress, 

 gave his address, which took the form of a retro- 

 spect of the progress attained since 1881. The 

 president recalled the supreme names of Pasteur, 

 Lister, Virchow, Huxley, and Koch, remarking 

 that there were giants in those days ; but he 

 showed how their pioneer work has been, and is 

 being, followed up by the many devoted workers 

 of our own time. He took occasion, also, to 

 defend vivisectors, especially in this country, from 

 the charges of cruelty and futility commonly 

 brought against them by malice and ignorance. 



The general addresses to the congress were 

 delivered on succeeding days by Prof. Chauffard, 

 of Paris, on prognosis in medicine ; by Prof. 

 Harvey Cushing, of Harvard, whose discussion of 

 the relation between surgery and medicine was 

 found to contain, as its main feature, the finest 

 defence of experiments on animals that has 

 been heard for many years — a defence supported 

 by the resolution in favour of vivisection which 

 was later passed by the various sections of 

 the congress ; by Prof. Ehrlich, of Frankfurt, on 

 pathology nominally, but actually on the most 

 remarkable and beneficent of single achievements 

 in scientific therapeutics that the history of medi- 

 cine can record ; by Prof. W. Bateson, on here- 

 dity, a subject which, in his lecture, and in other 

 pathological aspects, received, as was long over- 

 due, much attention at the congress; and by Mr. 

 John Burns, President of the Local Government 

 Board, upon public health. An address on this 

 subject from a determined opponent of vaccination 

 was, perhaps, the most startling novelty of the 

 congress, though the address was well worth hear- 

 ing, and this aspect of it would fortunatelv be un- 

 known to most of our foreign g-uests at the time. 

 Amid the multitudinous features of the con- 

 gress, with its hundred or so set discussions and 

 its more than six hundred papers, one subject 

 stands out in clear relief, as would be expected 

 by every reader of Prof. Ehrlich's great address 

 on chemio-therapy, a slightly abbreviated form 

 of which is to be found on p. 620. Those who 

 heard that address were well prepared for the 

 discussion on the duty of the State in regard to 

 syphilis, which was held in the Albert Hall on 

 Saturday at a combined meeting of the sections 

 of dermatology and syphilography, and of forensic 

 NO. 2285, VOL. qi] 



medicine, under the presidency of Sir Malcolm 

 Morris, whose initial part in the public advance 

 we have made in the last two or three weeks must 

 be duly honoured by future historians of public 

 health. The result of Saturday's discussion was 

 the unanimous passage of a resolution calling 

 upon the Governments of all countries represented 

 at the congress to make systematic provision for 

 the diagnosis and treatment of all cases of 

 syphilis not otherwise cared for. 



Monday's debate on the treatment of syphilis 

 by salvarsan made clear the real significance of 

 the resolution 'already passed. The reception 

 accorded to Prof. Ehrlich will never be forgotten 

 by those who were privileged to be present. He 

 introduced the discussion, and was followed by 

 Prof. Wassermann, to whom we owe the invalu- 

 able blood reaction for the recognition of syphilis, 

 and by Prof. Hata, of Japan, who helped Ehrlich 

 in the great constructive search which led to sal- 

 varsan as the six hundred and sixth synthetic com- 

 pound tested, and now acknowledged to be, as 

 Prof. Wassermann said, " the mightiest weapon 

 in the whole of medicine." Lieutenant Gibbard, 

 R.A.M.C., reported on the revolution wrought by 

 salvarsan in the treatment of syphilis in the 

 British Army, and other speakers, from all parts 

 of the world, whose total experience must run 

 now into scores of thousands of cases, testified 

 to the power of this remedy. Fate has been cruel, 

 indeed, that young Schaudinn, who found the 

 spirochete only some seven years ago, thus pro- 

 viding Ehrlich with the living object of his chemi- 

 cal genius, should have been struck down in his 

 early thirties, even before the first molecule of 

 salvarsan came into existence upon a planet which 

 the spirochaste has so long ravaged. It need 

 only here be added that, thanks to Schaudinn, 

 Wassermann, and Ehrlich, the whole problem of 

 syphilis is now utterly revolutionised. The medi- 

 cal profession to-day asks only to be allowed to 

 cure the victims of this infection, thereby prevent- 

 ing it as nothing but cure can ever do. The Royn' 

 Commission now demanded will be concerned 

 with that central question, " the provision of 

 diagnosis and treatment"; the horrible and use- 

 less measures taken in the past can never again 

 be contemplated, and only unteachable ignorance 

 and prejudice against knowledge can excuse the 

 suggestions already made by two members of the 

 House of Commons in this respect. 



Another racial poison, alcohol, was the subject 

 of an important discussion on alcohol and de- 

 generacy, in the section of forensic medicine, in- 

 troduced by Dr. Laquer, of Wiesbaden. The 

 discussion was valuable, but as one-sided as that 

 on the same subject which was held at the Inter- 

 national Eugenics Congress last year, for at 

 neither did the distinguished English author of a 

 familiar report on parental alcoholism appear to 

 defend his unique results on this subject. 



The debates on various surgical problems, not- 

 ably the operative treatment of cerebral tumours, 

 excited great interest, and were doubtless profit- 

 able. Sir Victor Horsley had a notable reception 





