20 Trans. Acad. Sei. of St. Louts 
he cannot see a similar situation in a score of issues in 
which he has his own personal convictions. May I gently 
suggest the League of Nations, Prohibition, and German 
Reparations. 
If the public finds difficulty in adjustment as to views 
on subjects of general interest, and if certain positions 
of physicians seem unappealing, its own efforts at the 
solution of medical problems lead to ends that to the 
medical mind seem little short of devastating; self- 
diagnosis having as its apparent object the selection of 
that non-disfiguring disability which is least disagree- 
able to contemplate, that never ends fatally, and can be 
readily cured with a laxative pill. Systems of exercise, 
vibration, Christian Science, and New Thought, osteop- 
athy and chiropractic, baths, ranging from vapor to 
mud, cancer cures, the stock of the family medicine 
closet, everything from walking barefoot through the 
grass and the laying on of hands to Lydia Pinkham’s 
Compound, all are tried. And the astounding thing is 
that the patient as a rule gets well and lauds to heaven 
that remedy or system that he happened to be taking 
or employing at the time of his recovery. Apparently 
he would be as well off if he had the name of each 
remedy written on a slip of paper and placed in a hat 
to make selection by the grab-box method—the result 
seems about the same. What can the answer be? It 
would seem that there must be forces, operations and 
reactions in the human body that are far beyond our 
knowledge; that we are arguing and attaining conclu- 
sions not based on adequate premises, either as to the 
cause or the interpretation of results. It would seem 
that we should look to scientific medical people for 
saner interpretation and direction. In considerable 
measure this is afforded, in spite of surface incongrui- 
