246 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. LIU. No. 1368 



have earned retirement. The society espe- 

 cially fosters and encourages younger mem- 

 bers to read essays and to present unusual 

 cases, and they are always certain of an ap- 

 preciative audience. This is a keen incentive 

 to study and research work. 



Since it is true that history repeats itself, 

 is it not well to pause now and then to take 

 a glance at the achievements of the past in 

 order to gain new encouragement for the 

 accomplishment of the future? 



A survey of its history shows that medicine 

 has had a far greater development in the past 

 century than in all previous time. The 

 changes that have taken place have been truly 

 stupendous. The current of medical progress 

 is still in rapid and vigorous flow, with no 

 sign of slowing. A multitude of keen in- 

 vestigators are eagerly and industriously 

 hunting out and developing new knowledge 

 and new methods. Every year or two yields 

 new facts of fundamental value. These dis- 

 coveries are rapidly assimilated into the body 

 of diagnostic and therapeutic methods and 

 practise; the novelty of one year becomes 

 the routine of the nest. 



Of the great body of science, medicine is 

 an integral part. In no department of knowl- 

 edge is scientific method more rigorously pur- 

 sued, or with more productive results than in 

 medicine. It is the use of the scientific 

 method alone that has brought about the vast 

 development of medicine within the past 

 century, with all the resultant benefit to man- 

 kind. In no field of human activity is there 

 a greater exercise of humanitarian spirit than 

 in medicine. In the difficulties that confront 

 mankind to-day, the coiirse and the duty of 

 the medical profession are clear — to continue 

 the vigorous employment of those scientific 

 principles and the exercise of the altruistic 

 spirit that elevated medicine out of the empir- 

 ical and stagnant inefficiency that character- 

 ized it for a thousand years. Furthermore, 

 medicine is in a position to offer the applica- 

 tion of those same principles and spirit to 

 the solution of the grave difficulties that con- 

 front mankind to-day. Medicine can proudly 

 present its record before the world as a con- 



spicuous example of the attainment of sub- 

 stantial efficiency and social service; the 

 methods and the spirit that have brought suc- 

 cess to medicine ought to help in bringing 

 equal efficiency and achievement in industrial, 

 economic and civic institutions. 



The great achievement of medicine not only 

 affords us inspiration and pride, but impose 

 upon us serious responsibilities and obliga- 

 tions. It is our duty, individually and col- 

 lectively, to keep ourselves worthy of our 

 great profession, assiduously to cultivate our 

 art, to maintain unimpaired the great heri- 

 tage of the past, and, as opportunity offers, 

 to add to the store of medical knowledge. We 

 should cherish the principles and the spirit 

 that have brought us to our proud position. 

 We should keep aglow the light that has dis- 

 pelled so much of the darkness and obscurity 

 of the peculiar problems that confront us, and 

 let that light shine into the gloom of a dis- 

 ordered world. In the consciousness of the 

 great achievements and usefulness that have 

 been attained, and in our own assiduous 

 efforts to live up to the spirit of our great 

 profession, rest the greatest satisfactions and 

 the greatest rewards that can come to us. 



Will you not turn with me for a brief 

 glance at some of the developments in medi- 

 cine during the last half century. In the 

 short time which I have at my disposal it 

 will be possible to touch only the high lights 

 of this subject. 



Fifty years ago the use of the microscope 

 was in the hands of a few men who devoted 

 their lives exclusively to research work, 

 whereas to-day, it is one of the instrimients at 

 the right hand of every busy practitioner, 

 who would feel as much at sea vnthout it as 

 without his stethoscope or test tube. 



Among the broader developments of the last 

 half century when medical science branched 

 out and its progress depended ui)on highly 

 specialized study and research, the practise of 

 medicine evolved the si)ecialist. These have 

 increased to enormous numbers, and surely 

 for the most part are justifiable, but it must 

 be confessed that some are needless and im- 

 mature. It will require a decade or more to 



