130 



SCIENCE 



[X. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 787 



ret for a dissecting room, a small chemical 

 laboratory, a museiom with specimens from 

 the clinic and some inexpensive apparatus 

 for demonstrating the elements of physics 

 and chemistry were the essentials. The 

 session was only six months, and two ses- 

 sions completed the course. The lecmres 

 were repeated each year and both classes 

 attended the same lectures. Possibly some 

 member of the faculty had a microscope, 

 which might be seen, protected from the 

 dust, under a glass case. It was rumored 

 among the students that a drop of water 

 seen through this instrument had been 

 found to be teeming with life. Earely some 

 professor was bold enough to actually use 

 the microscope, and possibly he exhibited 

 diatoms, uric acid crystals and sections of 

 bone. 



This is all changed. The medical build- 

 ing with all needed laboratories and equip- 

 ment costs himdreds of thousands of dol- 

 lars. Skilled men giving their entire time 

 to the work are demanded in all the labora- 

 tory branches, and even the clinician has 

 but little time for outside remunerative 

 work. 



I do not think that I have overdrawn the 

 picture of the present conditions of the 

 medical man in this country. The medical 

 schools that were paying properties thirty 

 years ago are now being donated to the 

 universities. Medical education has become 

 so expensive that it can be provided only 

 by institutions that are endowed or receive 

 financial support from the state or the 

 municipality. The advance made in med- 

 ical education in this countrj^ in the past 

 ten years is greater than that of any other 

 profession. To fit one for the practise 

 of medicine, higher preliminary training, 

 more time and more money are required. 

 Notwithstanding these things, the average 

 income of the medical practitioner in this 

 country is decreasing year by year. He 



does much for the public good for which 

 he receives neither recognition nor reward. 

 As a member of this profession I am 

 making these statements without the slight- 

 est bitterness and even without complaint, 

 because I believe that the profession is 

 preparing itself to do the greatest good for 

 the race, that it is in training to render 

 mankind the highest service, and that its 

 members in the near future must be leaders 

 in an evolution such as the world has never 

 known. I am by no means sure that the 

 profession in general is to be credited with 

 being conscious of the great work that lies 

 before it, or of preparing itself for the high 

 station to which it is to be called. The 

 civilized world has reached a period in its 

 evolution in which the educated medical 

 man must play an important part. With- 

 out his help the development of the race 

 can not proceed as it should. Man has 

 reached a period in his development when 

 he has become conscious of the fact that 

 the great work of advancing his race 

 towards physical, intellectual and moral 

 perfection is a duty which falls upon him- 

 self. The creature has been elevated to the 

 dignity and power of a creator and this 

 imposes upon him a responsibility that he 

 may not and can not avoid. 



The history of civilization is being re- 

 written, and in the light of to-day there is 

 being read into it a lesson that the world 

 can not ignore. History has heretofore 

 dealt almost exclusively with questions of 

 politics, with literature, customs, manners, 

 etc. The influence of disease upon the 

 decline and fall of nations has been until 

 recently overlooked. Professor Jones has 

 shown quite conclusively that the Plas- 

 modium of malaria was the greatest factor 

 in the decay of Greek civilization and did 

 much to render the once virile Roman an 

 easy victim to the more robust Goth and 

 Vandal. The buried cities of Asia and 



