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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXI. No. 787 



beneficent fruits only as a result of slow, 

 laborious research. The chemist, bacteriol- 

 ogist, pathologist and clinician have ob- 

 tained results, not by sitting in their 

 studies or libraries and evolving theories 

 from their inner consciousness, but by ex- 

 perimentation and close, accurate observa- 

 tion in their laboratories, and at the bed- 

 side. For more than a thousand years 

 before the time of Pasteur there were occa- 

 sional medical men who believed that cer- 

 tain diseases are spread by living con- 

 tagions. In the fifth century before our 

 era Empedocles of Agrigento taught that 

 stagnant water breeds disease and he is 

 said to have delivered the city of Selinunte 

 from an epidemic of fever by draining a 

 swamp in the vicinity. And yet, in the 

 year 1905, twenty-four centuries later, ac- 

 cording to Ross, out of a total population 

 of about two and one half millions in 

 Greece not less than one million had ma- 

 laria and nearly six thousand died from 

 this disease. About two thousand years 

 ago Varro in his "Rerum rusticarum," in 

 advising concerning the location of a coun- 

 try house, wrote as follows: "Adimadver- 

 tendum etiam si qua erunt loca palustria, 

 et proter easdem causas, et quod crescunt 

 animalia qufedam minuta, qute non possunt 

 occuli consequi, et per asra intus in corpus, 

 per OS ac nares perveniunt atque difSciles 

 efficiunt morbos," and yet the Plasmodium 

 of malaria devastated the fair fields of 

 southern Italy and continued to hold sway, 

 awaiting the time when a French army 

 surgeon, Laveran, at an isolated post in the 

 same malaria-ridden Africa, should demon- 

 strate the cause of this disease, the giant 

 enemy to the civilization of the Mediter- 

 ranean coast. Then came the researches of 

 Ross and others by which the part played 

 in the distribution of malaria by the mos- 

 quito was demonstrated, and now the fer- 

 tile lands of the Roman campagna promise 



to become the home of a busy, contented 

 and happy people. Findlay thought that 

 a certain mosquito might be a factor in the 

 distribution of yellow fever, but this was 

 demonstrated to be a fact only by the care- 

 ful and heroic investigations of Reed and 

 his colleagues. Small-pox was well-nigh 

 universal until the careful observations and 

 practical experiments of Jenner relieved 

 man of the heavy tribute that he paid to 

 this disease in death and disfigurement. 

 Anthrax and hydrophobia levied a heavy 

 tax on both man and beast until brought 

 under man's control by the genius of Pas- 

 teur. Diphtheria with its death rate of 

 from 50 to 60 per cent, alarmed the physi- 

 cian and awakened the horror of the com- 

 munity until the patient labors of Behring 

 and Rous gave the world antitoxin. The 

 beneficent action of anesthesia was fore- 

 shadowed by Davy and brought to full 

 realization by the experiments of Long, 

 Wells, Jackson and Morton. The true 

 nature of tuberculosis was brought to light 

 by the studies of Vilemin and Koch, and 

 upon the knowledge thus gained it is within 

 the power of man to stamp out this and 

 other infectious diseases. A list of the 

 great discoveries of scientific medicine is 

 too long to give fully. This investigation 

 into the causation and prevention of dis- 

 ease is not complete, it is barely begun. No 

 disease that afflicts man or beast is thor- 

 oughly understood; in all cases the knowl- 

 edge in the possession of the wisest medical 

 man is but fragmentary, and in regard to 

 the nature of many diseases we are still 

 in complete ignorance. For instance, we 

 know practically nothing as yet of the 

 cause of cancer and but little of that of 

 insanity. "We are just beginning to prac- 

 tise vaccination against typhoid fever and 

 other acute infections. The greatest prob- 

 lem that lies before the most advanced 

 nations to-day is to free themselves from 



