72 FREER. 



countries and colonies have been in a state of greater or less isolation 

 the one from the other; only with the development of steamship and 

 rail communication have more comprehensive medical associations and 

 a freer exchange of the results of investigation become feasible. Scien- 

 tific work in the Far East has also suffered in the past most seriously 

 from the lack of well-organized and extensive libraries, so that the 

 profession at large, even if it had been animated by the most potent 

 spirit of development could not have done the fundamental work neces- 

 sary for any comprehensive piece of research. 



Isolation produces stagnation, and more than that, gives rise to the 

 growth of an insular conceit which not only is fatal to advance, but 

 which even rapidly leads to retrogression. The isolated individual and 

 community have no standards for comparison with others nor stimulus 

 to the best endeavor, and inevitably a habit of thought becomes implanted, 

 which accepts what was the best practice in the past as being equally 

 advantageous to-day. This condition, with all due deference to what was 

 accomplished in former times, has existed in the Philippine Islands. 

 The Archipelago, isolated and with infrequent communication with 

 other countries, was compelled to live within itself. The members of 

 the medical profession, if they have no means of comparing themselves 

 with the leaders of other countries and if they lack the stimulus of 

 great libraries, are almost certain to develop into leagues on the one hand 

 for mutual admiration and on the other for recrimination, with the 

 result that development is checked and old and standard practices 

 retained. Ever and anon fresh blood may be brought in from abroad, 

 causing a momentary awakening which leaves a certain amount of per- 

 manent advance, but in the main, owing to the conditions which of 

 necessity exist, its best effort is eventually lost. 



However, in recent years a rapid improvement, not only in the Philip- 

 pines, but throughout the Orient has been manifest. In Manila we 

 now have a scientific library which gives access to all the recent literature, 

 laboratories which subject the existing diseases to the search light of exact 

 investigation and which give certain means of diagnosis and accurate 

 statistics, hospitals where careful studies can be carried on, medical 

 associations which bring us in contact with the members of the profession 

 in contiguous countries, and a journal by means of which the results of the 

 work accomplished can be placed in the hands of our colleagues through- 

 out the world. Ambitious and well-trained investigators have now beeii 

 coming to the Islands for a number of years, each bringing with him 

 the latest experience and technique of the great laboratories of Europe 

 and America, and each doing his part toward advancing our knowledge 

 of tropical and other diseases. 



The time finally arrived when, realizing that the means and men 

 were at hand successfully to begin instruction in medicine by the 

 same methods and on as high a plane as had so long been done 



