THE PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. - 33 
This foundation, incorporated in 1913, was founded, in the words of 
the President, ‘to stimulate world-wide research, to aid the diffusion of 
knowledge, to encourage co-operation in medical education and public 
health.’ Its chartered purpose is to promote, not the exclusive prosperity 
of any one nation, but ‘ the well-being of mankind throughout the world.’ 
Science, indeed, knows no boundaries of nations, languages, or creeds. 
It is truly international. We are all children of one Father. The advance 
of knowledge in the causation and prevention of disease is not for the 
benefit of any one country, but for all—for the lonely African native, 
deserted by his tribe, dying in the jungle of sleeping sickness, or the Indian 
or Chinese coolie dying miserably of beri-beri, just as much as for the 
citizens of our own towns. 
From what has been said it is abundantly clear that during the com- 
paratively few years that have passed since this Association first met in 
Canada, enormous advances have been made in the prevention of disease. 
Before that time we were still in the gloom and shadow of the dark ages. 
Now we have come out into the light. Man has come into his heritage 
and seems now to possess some particle of the universal creative force 
in virtue of which he can wrest from Nature the secrets so jealously guarded 
by her and bend them to his own desire. 
But let there be no mistake, much has been done but much more re- 
mains to be done. Mankind is still groaning and travailing under a grievous 
burden and weight of pain, sickness, and disease. Interruptions are sure 
to come in the future as they have in the past in the work of removing 
the incubus, but, in spite of these, it is the duty of science to go steadily 
forward, illuminating the dark places in hope of happier times. 
1924 
