THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
PREVENTION OF DISEASE. 
BY 
MAJOR-GENERAL SIR DAVID BRUCE, K.C.B., F.R.S., A.MS., 
PRESIDENT OF THE ASSOCIATION. 
My first duty is to thank the General Committee of the British Association 
for the great honour they have done me by electing me to the post of 
President. I must confess I wondered at first why I had been chosen, but 
soon came to the conclusion that it was an honour done through me to all 
Army Medical Officers for the magnificent work done by them during the 
Great War, in the prevention of disease and alleviation of pain and suffering. 
In the next place, I may be permitted to remind you that this is the 
fourth time the British Association for the Advancement of Science has 
met in Canada—first in 1884 in Montreal, in this city in.1897, and in 
Winnipeg in 1909. 
The addresses given on these occasions dealt with the advancement of 
knowledge in Archeology and Physics. 
It is now my privilege, as a member of the medical profession, to address 
you on the advances made during the same period in our knowledge of 
disease and our means of coping with and preventing it. 
An address on the prevention of disease at first sight does not promise 
to be a very pleasant subject, but, after all, it is a humane subject, and also 
a most important subject, as few things can conduce more to human 
happiness and human efficiency than the advancement of knowledge in the 
prevention of disease. 
Think for a moment of the enormous loss of power in a community 
through sickness. Some little time ago the English Minister of Health, 
when emphasising the importance of preventive work, said that upwards 
of 20,000,000 weeks of work were lost every year through sickness, among 
insured workers in England. In other words, the equivalent of the work 
of 375,000 people for the whole year had been lost to the State. When to 
that is added the corresponding figure for the non-insured population you 
get some idea of the importance of preventive work. 
1924 B 
