12 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1018 



. . We are sorry for the Greek, whose bodily 

 health, mental strength and moral sense 

 were depressed by the invisible and insidi- 

 ous organism.s of malaria, and truly his 

 memory deserves our sympathy. He had 

 no microscope, and how could he detect or 

 .even suspect that the mosquitoes which had 

 annoyed his ancestors for generations had 

 armed their lancets with deadly poison, 

 brought from Africa? The Greek had 

 never heard of quinin and the other cin- 

 chona alkaloids. He did not know the land 

 whose forests were even then elaborating 

 those products, which, centuries later, were 

 of greater value than gold to man, and 

 proved to be an essential help in the uplift 

 of mankind. Laveran discovered the Plas- 

 modium malaricB. Ross studied its life his- 

 tory and the fetters of this disease, which 

 has so long retarded the progress of man, 

 have been broken. Mitchell and Reichart 

 investigated the poisonous properties of 

 snake venom. Sewall immunized animals 

 with it. Ehrlich studied the similar bodies, 

 abrin, ricin and diphtheria toxin, and von 

 Behring and Roux gave the world anti- 

 toxin, the magical curative value of which 

 has greatly reduced the mortality from this 

 disease. The experiments of Villemin 

 demonstrated the contagious nature of 

 tuberculosis, long suspected and frequently 

 denied. The diligent research of Koch re- 

 sulted in the recognition and isolation of 

 the causative agent, and since this discov- 

 ery the mortality of the Great White Plague 

 in Europe and the United States has been 

 diminished more than half, and it is within 

 the range of sanity to look forward to the 

 time, when the former "Captain of the 

 hosts of death" will be known only by the 

 fearful records he once made in the history 

 of man's struggle to be relieved from the 

 heavy tribute paid to infection. 



We boast of a great civilization, but this 

 is justified only within limits. Science 



more nearly dominates the world than at 

 any time in the past. Learning permeates 

 the masses more deeply, but credulity and 

 ignorance are widely prevalent. In this 

 country of nearly one hundred millions, 

 there are thousands whose greed impedes 

 the progress of the whole, tens of thousands 

 whose ignorance retards their own growth, 

 and other thousands who live by crime and 

 procreate their kind to feed on generations 

 to come. We have our schools, colleges and 

 universities, while our almshouses, insane 

 asylums and penal institutions are full. In 

 our cities we see the palatial homes of the 

 ultra rich, the splendid temples of trade 

 and commerce, the slums of want and 

 poverty and the homes, both rich and 

 squalid, of vice and crime. No nation in 

 this condition can be given a clean bill of 

 health. Our hill-tops are illuminated by 

 the light of knowledge, but our valleys are 

 covered by the clouds of ignorance. We 

 have not emerged from the shadows of 

 the dark ages. The historian of the future 

 will have no difficulty in convincing his 

 readers that those who lived at the begin- 

 ning of the twentieth century were but 

 slightly removed from barbarism, as he 

 will tell that the school, saloon and house 

 of prostitution flourished in close proxim- 

 ity; that the capitalist worked his employ- 

 ees under conditions which precluded 

 soundness of body; that the labor union 

 man dynamited buildings; that whilst we 

 sent missionaries to convert the Moslem 

 and the Buddhist ten thousand murdeis 

 were committed annually in our midst, and 

 that a large percentage of our mortality 

 was due to preventable disease. 



Evidently there is much to be done be- 

 fore we pass out from the shadows of ig- 

 norance into the full light of knowledge. 

 In this great work for the betterment of 

 the race the medical profession has impor- 

 tant duties to perform. I do not mean to 



