24 THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
army, free from epidemic and communicable disease, from 100,000 
men to a million. ‘ Preventive medicine has made it possible to 
maintain 20,000,000 men under arms and abnormally free from disease, 
and so provided greater scope for the killing activities of the other 
military weapons. . . . Whilst the surprise effects of chemical war- 
fare aroused anger as being contrary to military tradition, they were 
minute compared with those of preventive medicine. The former 
slew its thousands, whilst the latter slew its millions and is still reap- 
ing the harvest.’ This argument carries no conviction. Poison gas 
is not merely contrary to European military tradition; it is repugnant 
to the right feeling of civilised humanity. It in no wise displaces 
or supplants existing instruments of war, but creates’ a new kind of 
weapon, of limitless power and deadliness. ‘Mustard gas’ may be a 
comparatively innocuous product as lethal substances go. It certainly 
was not intended to be such by our enemies. Nor, presumably, were 
the Allies any more considerate when they retaliated with it. Its 
effects, indeed, were sufficiently terrible to destroy the German moral. 
The knowledge that the Allies were preparing to employ it to an almost 
boundless extent was one of the factors that determined our enemies to 
sue for the Armistice. But if poisonous chemicals are henceforth to be 
regarded as a regular means of offence in warfare, is it at all likely that 
their use will be confined to ‘ mustard gas,’ or indeed to any other of the 
various substances which were employed up to the date of the Armistice ? 
To one who, after the peace, inquired in Germany concerning the 
German methods of making ‘ mustard gas,’ the reply was:— Why are 
you worrying about this when you know perfectly well that this is not 
the gas we shall use in the next war?’ 
I hold no brief for preventive medicine, which is well able to fight 
its own case. I would only say that it is the legitimate business of 
preventive medicine to preserve by all known means the health of any 
body of men, however large or small, committed to its care. It is not 
to its discredit if, by knowledge and skill, the numbers so maintained 
run into millions instead of being limited to thousands. On the other 
hand, ‘an educated public opinion’ will refuse to give credit to any 
body of scientific men who employ their talents in devising means to 
develop and perpetuate a mode of warfare which is abhorrent to the 
higher instincts of humanity. 
This Association, I trust, will set its face against the continued 
degradation of science in thus augmenting the horrors of war. It 
could have no loftier task than to use its great influence in arresting a 
course which is the very negation of civilisation. 
