202 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXVIII. No. 711 



pared at all times to respond to the call of 

 states or cities in sanitary distress or in need 

 of sound advice on public health matters. 

 "When to all these responses and successes 

 we add that greatest of all modern sanitary- 

 achievements, the making habitable of the 

 Isthmian Canal Zone, largely through the 

 genius of one man, we need not be sur- 

 prised that the American Medical Associa- 

 tion has chosen that man for its next presi- 

 dent, namely. Colonel "William C. Gorgas, 

 medical member of the Isthmian Canal 

 Commission, but a sanitarian rather than 

 an ordinary medical man. 



Enough has been said to show the mar- 

 velous responses made or making on every 

 hand to the call with which we are dealing. 

 And yet much more might be said. The 

 establishment of the EockefeUer Institute 

 for Medical Research, of the McCormick 

 Institute for Infectious Diseases, of sani- 

 tary and engineering research laboratories, 

 of a permanent and well-equipped federal 

 census bureau, the recent proposal of Dr. 

 Ditman, of Columbia University, for the 

 establishment of a school of sanitary sci- 

 ence and preventive medicine — all these 

 testify that the call to health is being heard 

 and answered. 



The relation of the physician to the pub- 

 lic is rapidly changing. He will soon be 

 expected to be as proficient in the art of 

 prevention as in that of healing. He will 

 not be expected to build water works or 

 sewerage systems, or to install systems of 

 street cleaning, or garbage disposal, or 

 heating and ventilation. These wiU be left, 

 where they belong, with the sanitary engi- 

 neer. He will not be expected to be an 

 analyst of foods and drugs, or a judge of 

 their purity. Public health work of this 

 kind belongs to the sanitary chemist. He 

 will not usually, though he will occasion- 

 ally, be a bacteriologist to boards of health, 

 or sanitary testing stations, or municipal 

 water works, or sewage filters. Such work 



will be done more and more by sanitary 

 biologists. What he will do, wiU be, first 

 and foremost, to fulfill that most ancient 

 and most honorable function of the medical 

 man and remain the trusted and intimate 

 medical adviser of individuals and of fam- 

 ilies in sickness and in health. He will not, 

 however, be content with this alone. He 

 will seek, in season and out of season, not 

 merely to cure but still more to prevent 

 disease among individuals, families and 

 communities, by urging higher standards 

 of living; by teaching temperance in all 

 things; by advocating pure water, pure 

 milk, pure food, pure living. If it is in 

 him to be an investigator or a teacher, he 

 will be one or both of these things. If not, 

 he will be a frank and honest, but not a 

 captious, critic; he will mold and reform, 

 if he can not lead, public opinion. And 

 by so doing he will give to his day and his 

 generation noble and useful service; he 

 will respond to the call of the age ; he will 

 do his part for the public health; he will 

 uphold greatly the traditions of a great 

 profession. 



William T. Sedgwick 

 ]\£assachusetts Institute of Technology 



APPROPRIATIONS FOB THE DEPARTMENT 

 OF AGRICULTURE^ 



The aggregate of the appropriations carried 

 in the act is $11,672,106. This does not in- 

 clude -an appropriation of $460,000 for the 

 printing and binding of the department, which 

 appears in the appropriation act for sundry 

 civil expenses. There are also permanent ap- 

 propriations of $3,000,000 for the federal meat 

 inspection and of $528,000 for the Adams 

 fund, both of which are administered by the 

 department, but not included in the act, ma- 

 king a grand total of $15,660,106 for the com- 

 ing year, and an apparent increase over the 

 previous year of $2,320,814, or about 15 per 

 cent. A large part of this increase, however, 

 is only nominal, as for the present year over 



' From The Experiment Station Record. 



