December 6, 1912] 



SCIENCE 



771 



heard of it, and the coal-tar products with 

 their varied possibilities of usefulness and 

 mischief still lay in the fossil beds of the 

 earth. Surgery was a matter of luck, a 

 gamble, as the phrase is, still conducted, as 

 has been said, "along the lines laid down 

 by the early Egyptians." There had been 

 no Lister to show the reason for clean 

 knives, clean hands and clean air, and the 

 battlefields of those days were a wild riot 

 of the germs of gangrene and blood 

 poisoning. 



As surgery did not exist, we knew noth- 

 ing of preventive surgery or the surgery 

 of pathology. 



As medicine dealt with symptoms, we 

 knew nothing of pharmacology. These 

 were the days before Michael Foster and 

 physiology was still merely a series of de- 

 ductions from the facts of elementary anat- 

 omy. The nature and structure of the 

 body cell was very scantily known. With- 

 out knowing the germ cell, the physical 

 basis of heredity, the science of heredity 

 was unknown, and without accurate knowl- 

 edge of heredity, the science of eugenics 

 can have no existence or meaning. 



At the present time, the facts and laws of 

 pathology are to the trained physician as 

 essential as the alphabet or the multiplica- 

 tion table to the rest of the world. But we 

 poor practical doctors of our day had to 

 get along without it. Science had not 

 reached so far, and we had to be practical 

 men because, perforce, we could not be 

 scientific. Dr. Charles Sedgwick Minot has 

 well pointed out the distinction. He says : 



The only important difference between the prac- 

 tical doctor and the scientific doctor is that the 

 patients of the practical doctor are more likely 

 to die. 



In healing men, as in other lines of in- 

 dustry, the first requisite is to know how. 

 To know how is the essence of science. 



The next stage of the scientific doctor is 

 not merely to cure his patients, but to help 



conduct the affairs of the community so 

 that men and women will no longer come 

 to him as patients to be cured. 



Half the disease of the world comes from 

 the infection of the crowd. Nine tenths of 

 the infection of the crowd could be spared 

 if the knowledge we have could work itself 

 out in governmental action. 



The governments of the world are about 

 the poorest tools we know of for the achieve- 

 ment of good deeds. They are controlled 

 by tradition, by prejudice, by the noise of 

 the drum and fife. They are ruled by in- 

 fluence of caste and privilege. They are 

 bigoted and wasteful and when they deal 

 with the individual life they are likely to 

 be careless and unjust. 



But in dealing with the great plagues of 

 the world, the black, the yellow, the red 

 and all the poisonous array of health- 

 breaking parasites, the government is the 

 only tool we have. The individual is help- 

 less, the community is all. The acts of the 

 community can not rise much above its 

 knowledge. All effective government is 

 by public opinion. The people must learn 

 the facts of pathology and of sanitation. 

 There is no school of medicine which can 

 honorably come between them and the 

 truth. 



And that the Lane Library of Stanford 

 University, the Medical Department of 

 Stanford University and the university 

 itself, may do their part in the great work 

 of bringing health to the people, and that 

 they may cooperate with the sister schools 

 and with all other good agencies to good 

 ends, is the motive behind the functions of 

 to-day. 



ANTBITTSVOBLESUNG'^ 

 Eure Kaiserliehe und Konigliche Majestaten! 

 Hochansehnliche Versammlung ! 



Der erhabene Wunsch Eurer Majestat, 



'Am 31. Oktober in der neuen Aula der Uni- 

 versitat zu Berlin gehalten. 



