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THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 31 
This might be attained in a comparatively near future if only man 
could be allowed to work out his salvation in peace. Instead of this, 
great wars come and throw back the work for generations. 
To saddle the country with a million and a half of unemployed, with 
the consequent poverty, insufficient food, clothing and housing, is not 
calculated to further the prevention of disease and raise the standard of 
health. Is it too much to hope that in the revolving years a time 
may come when by a Confederation or League of Nations the world 
may be so policed that no one country will be able with impunity to attempt 
the destruction of its neighbour? Until this happens it is difficult to see 
how rickets, tuberculosis, and other diseases can be adequately dealt with 
in our city populations. 
DISEASES DUE TO DUCTLESS GLANDS. 
I can only briefly allude to the astonishing advance in our knowledge 
of the diseases caused by a defect or excess of secretion of the ductless 
glands. Many of these discoveries are among the fairy tales of science. 
All this advance has taken place in the comparatively short space of 
time under review. 
Professor Starling, one of the chief protagonists in this advance, in 
his Harveian Oration a year ago states this very vividly: ‘ When I 
compare our present knowledge of the workings of the body, and our powers 
of interfering with and of controlling those workings for the benefit of 
humanity, with the ignorance and despairing impotence of my student 
days, I feel that I have had the good fortune to see the sun rise on a darkened 
world, and that the life of my contemporaries has coincided not with a 
renaissance but with a new birth of man’s powers over his environment 
and his destinies, unparalleled in the whole history of mankind. Not but 
there is still much to be learned: the ocean of the unknown still stretches 
far and wide in front of us, but for its exploration we have the light of day 
to guide us; we know the directions in which we would sail, and every 
day, by the co-operation of all branches of science, our means of conveyance 
are becoming more swift and sure. Only labour is required to extend 
almost without limit our understanding of the human body and our 
control of its fate.’ 
There is one point of likeness between the vitamins which we have been 
considering and these glandular secretions, or hormones, as they are named. 
Just as we have seen that the presence or absence of an extremely minute 
