66 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVIII. No. 446. 



we may be able to perceive more clearly its 

 vital relationship to higher education and 

 its absolute dependence as a growing, pro- 

 gressive science upon the stimulation af- 

 forded by university methods, aims and 

 ideals. 



To discuss an educational question be- 

 fore university men suggests the appro- 

 priateness of the quotation from Confucius 

 with wMch an eminent scientist once pref- 

 aced an address made under similar cir- 

 cumstances: 'Avoid the appearance of 

 evil : do not stoop to tie your shoe in your 

 neighbor's melon patch.' A member of 

 the teaching staff of one of the newest 

 schools of medicine ought to display a de- 

 gree of modesty in the presence of medical 

 teachers whose thoughts and activities have 

 been molded by the traditions of one of 

 the oldest medical schools in the United 

 States, the sixth in point of time of es- 

 tablishment, and should hesitate above all 

 to urge the duty and responsibility of a 

 university in medical education. I am 

 sure, however, that you will pardon the 

 liberty which I take, for the reason that 

 the relations of medical education to other 

 forms of education and to other parts of 

 the educational system are still unsettled, 

 and it is the privilege, and no less the 

 duty, of all medical teachers to contribute 

 something tOAvards the development of 

 medical teaching from a special and in- 

 ferior position, until it attains what I be- 

 lieve is to be its final adjustment as one 

 of the highest branches in the general sys- 

 tem of university training. Perhaps I 

 may also plead in mitigation of my indis- 

 cretion a degree of hereditary relationship 

 to Yale in the fact that my father gradu- 

 ated here in medicine in 1830; my grand- 

 father was a student about 1795, but did 

 not graduate; my great-grandfather grad- 

 uated in 1778; and my great-great-grand- 

 father in 1739, and may speak as one whose 



speech can be tolerated because of kin, 

 albeit remote. 



In the original development of medicine 

 there was little necessity or opportunity 

 for its scientific study, because the physi- 

 cian was nothing else than a priest. By the 

 access to the gods which his oflSce afforded, 

 and his presumed knowledge of their 

 modes of thought and springs of action, 

 he leai'ned how to influence them, and 

 hence became sldlled in the treatment of 

 disease. It was apparently altogether an 

 era of preventive medicine. Disease was 

 universally regarded an evidence of the 

 wrath of an offended deity, and the only 

 way to prevent its ravages was to appease 

 the divine displeasure. If the deity was 

 prevailed upon by prayer or persuaded by 

 sacrifice to hold his destroying hand, dis- 

 ease disappeared. The theory of disease 

 was simple and the methods of cure were 

 obvious. A knowledge of the laws of 

 health and disease was not required. It 

 was only requisite to keep on good terms 

 with the divinity and not to anger him by 

 neglect or sacrilege or presumption. This 

 was the medicine of Moses, of Job, of 

 Homer and of semi-civilized people still 

 the world over. 



Later, when the conception of the power 

 and malign influence of the inferior gods 

 of the underworld developed, the physi- 

 cian who had formerly been a priest solely, 

 became in addition a magician and won- 

 der worker to the end that he might over- 

 come the machinations of evil deities by 

 invoking the aid of good- deities or com- 

 pelling the assistance of more powerful 

 and possibly more unscrupulous deities 

 than those who had originally produced the 

 disease from motives of pure malevolence 

 and hatred to mankind. He studied not 

 the law of disease, its mode of manifesta- 

 tion and the remedies which would cure it, 

 but rather sought to ascertain who was 

 responsible for it and what magical rites 



