JUNE 14, 1901. ] 
gress he is accorded certain rights, given 
certain prerogatives and hedged about by 
certain limitations, all calculated to in- 
crease his efficiency in promoting the com- 
mon welfare—and thus is the practice of 
medicine regulated. Heisspared from the 
battle that he may serve his companions, 
and he stays away from the chase that he 
may delve into the great mysteries—and 
thus is medical education inaugurated. He 
is the exponent not only of his professional 
knowledge, but of at least the average in- 
telligence of his people. He is, in short, 
an integral part of the primitive social 
fabric. As such he shares the manners, 
the customs, the aims, the ambitions of his 
companions; and he, with them, is con- 
trolled by the forces which determine the 
common state and the common destiny. 
His status is, therefore, determined by the 
very laws which control the growth and 
development of society itself. So true is 
this that, from the dawn of history until 
the present day, and in every stage of so- 
ciologic development, the civilization of a 
people may be infallibly determined by the 
intelligence, the efficiency and the influence 
of its medical profession. 
THE MEDICAL PROFESSION AND SOCIETY FIFTY 
YEARS AGO, 
It would not be to our present purpose 
to follow the evolution of society as ex- 
emplified in any of the civilized peoples, 
or, as the scientists say, ‘distinct ethnic 
entities of the world,’ in which the present 
complexity has been attained by an orderly 
succession of events. And it would be 
equally unnecessary to show, what every- 
body knows, that the medical profession, 
the heritor, in common with others, of ante- 
cedent influences, has been propelled by the 
same forces and by equally orderly events to 
precisely the same standard of civilization. 
The lesson before us is that of the relation of 
the medical profession to a society, which, 
SCIENCE. 
931 
but a few decades ago, was the most diverse 
in origin and the most heterogeneous in con- 
stitution known to modern history; but a 
society, which at the dawn of the twentieth 
century is one of the largest, richest and 
most intelligent of the world, a society, well 
amalgamated, and which, by common con- 
sent of even adverse critics, is moving in 
harmony with the most advanced influences 
of civilization. I fancy I should suddenly 
find myself unpopular with the audience, if 
I were to intimate that you, who comprise 
it—that you, the representatives of the 
medical profession—have failed to contribute 
your full quota to the great progress which 
that society in general has achieved, or 
that you do not reflect in intelligence and 
morality the highest type of civilized man. 
I hasten to allay your apprehension, for L 
have no such intention. On the contrary, 
Task you to indulge with me in a retro- 
spect of American society during the last 
half dozen decades that we may the better 
understand the important part that yon, 
and the profession that you represent, have 
played in the attainment of present re- 
sults. 
As I have already stated, the middle of 
the nineteenth century found diverse con- 
ditions of society in the United States. The 
older cities of the seaboard were the cen- 
ters of an advanced civilization. The re- 
moter counties of the same States, however, 
were then, in the absence of railroads, the 
telegraph and modern mail facilities, more 
remote from the centers of American influ- 
ence than is St. Paul to-day from St. Peters- 
burg. The great tide of emigration that had 
already poured and was yet pouring over the 
mountains and spreading in lonely habita- 
tions or widely separated communities over 
the vast valley of the Mississippi from the 
lakes to the gulf was busily engaged with 
the serious problems of existence. The 
forest was to be felled and the prairie was 
to be subjugated, habitations were to be 
