June 2, 1905.] 



SCIENCE. 



847 



United States contains 319 lawyers, 93 

 business men, 32 politicians, 12 editors, re- 

 porters and newspaper writers, 8 farmers, 

 3 teachers, 1 clergyman, 1 military man 

 and 3 physicians. Does it not seem 

 strange that the great law-making body of 

 our country should contain so few mem- 

 bers of this learned profession ? Think for 

 a moment of the amount of legislation in 

 which sanitary matters are involved! It 

 is acknowledged by all that the building of 

 the Panama Canal is more a sanitary prob- 

 lem than it is an engineering one. The 

 men who really build the Panama Canal 

 will be the physicians and health officers 

 who eliminate from that infected locality 

 the germs of malaria and infectious dis- 

 eases. If the canal fails it will not be for 

 lack of dredges nor shovels nor picks nor 

 machinery nor money, it will be due to 

 the ravages of cholera, of yellow fever and 

 of other malarial diseases. 



The importance of the quarantine serv- 

 ice has not been fully recognized. The 

 exclusion of disease is the easiest way to 

 fight it. The splendid work of the Public 

 Health and Marine Hospital Service is one 

 of the things which the national legislator 

 should carefully support. 



The legislation relating to pure food is a 

 matter of the utmost sanitary importance. 

 The regulations of interstate commerce 

 which omit the sanitary conditions which 

 have been previously outlined are alto- 

 gether incomplete. In fact it appears that 

 a very large proportion of our legislation 

 which really concerns the public welfare 

 should be accomplished with the advice, 

 the vote and consent of the medical pro- 

 fession, and yet out of more than 400 mem- 

 bers of the national congress only three 

 have had any medical training. The con- 

 gress of the future will contain not less 

 than 1 per cent, of trained medical men, 

 but let us hope as much as 25 or 30 per 



cent. Again, there is no reason why a 

 medical training should unfit a man for 

 other duties in connection with public life 

 than those relating to sanitary measures. 

 I can see no reason why a physician should 

 not make a good president as well as a good 

 major general, a good governor or a good 

 mayor, a good member of the common 

 council and especially a most excellent 

 commissioner of sew-ers. We wish the fu- 

 ture to see the entry of medical men into 

 public life and the assumption by them of 

 all duties of a nature which relate to the 

 public welfare. I can see no reason why 

 lawyers should predominate in our national 

 congress any more than that physicians 

 should hold the. balance of power. Perhaps 

 I can not better illustrate this idea than 

 by quoting from that master of political 

 craft, that learned and erudite statesman, 

 ex-Senator David Turpie, who says in his 

 book, entitled 'Recollections of My Own 

 Times,' in speaking of Senator Dr. Gra- 

 ham N. Fitch: 



Fitch was the only physician who ever served 

 from Indiana in the United States Senate. I 

 have latterly reflected somewhat upon this solitary 

 instance. Years ago we used to send a good many 

 of our physicians to Congress. He, himself, was 

 one of these, and there were several others, among 

 whom I recall Dr. John W. Davis, of Carlisle, in 

 the county of Sullivan, whom I knew quite well. 

 He was the first Indianian chosen to the position 

 of speaker of the House at Washington and was 

 accounted the best parliamentaiy jurist in the 

 country, perhaps in the world. His rulings were 

 quoted as authority in the English House of 

 Commons and more than once in the legislative 

 chambers of France. Upon his voluntary retire- 

 ment from Congress he was appointed minister of 

 the United States to China ; served with distinction 

 among the polished diplomats of the Orient, and 

 returned to accept the appointment of governor 

 of Oregon. He was the first American civilian 

 of official note and station to make the trip home- 

 ward from the east by way of the Pacific. His 

 voyage across the ocean lasted several weeks. 

 I have heard that the account of it, then no twice- 

 told tale, was a story of thrilling, almost tragic 

 interest. 



