Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1915. 
Modem  Medicine. 
229 
to  the  future  of  civilization  than  the  years  of  the  Napoleonic  wars. 
Yet  we  know  far  less  about  the  movements  of  contending  armies  in 
Europe  than  we  do  of  any  of  Napoleon's  campaigns.  Active  par- 
ticipation in  any  campaign  and  personal  advocacy  of  any  measure  are 
apt  to  develop  personal  prejudices  and  opinions,  often  based  on 
insufficient  evidence  or  biased  statements,  with  which  opinions  we 
are  often  reluctant  to  part.  It  is  only  by  reducing  the  problem  to  its 
simplest  term,  stripping  off  all  non-essential  and  obscuring  details 
and  stating  the  questions  involved  in  their  fundamental  form  that  we 
are  able  to  divest  our  minds  of  personal  and  local  prejudices  and  to 
recognize  all  the  factors  in  the  situation. 
My  subject  carries  with  it  by  implication  several  questions  which 
must  be  answered.  These  are :  How  does  modern  medicine  differ 
from  the  medical  knowledge  of  preceding  generations,  and  how  has 
this  change  altered  the  relations  of  society  and  physicians?  What 
are  the  social  responsibilities  of  modern  medicine,  and  how  do  they 
differ  from  those  of  previous  generations?  What  are  the  ideal  re- 
lations which  should  exist  between  the  medical  profession  and  the 
public?  What  are  the  mutual  duties  and  responsibilities  of  the  two 
parties  to  each  other  ?  How  can  these  responsibilities  be  made  plain, 
both  to  physicians  and  to  the  people,  and  how  can  each  party  to  the 
obligation  be  led  to  recognize  and  perform  its  plain  duty? 
If  I  were  addressing  a  general  audience  I  would  consider  it 
necessary  at  this  point  to  discuss  the  change  which  has  taken  place 
in  the  last  half  century  regarding  our  knowledge  of  epidemic  dis- 
eases, and  to  show  from  history  how  plagues  have  afflicted  mankind 
in  all  ages ;  how,  in  spite  of  advancing  knowledge  on  all  other 
subjects,  they  still  continued  to  be  truly  pestilences  which  walked 
in  darkness.  No  one  knew  whence  they  came,  how  they  were  caused 
or  how  they  could  be  prevented,  because  their  cause  lay  below  the 
vision  of  man — in  the  microscopic  world.  Few  realize  the  impor- 
tance of  the  invention  of  the  compound  achromatic  microscope  in 
1835,  which  first  made  it  possible  to  study  microscopic  life.  The  work 
of  many  investigators  in  this  field  did  not  culminate  until  the  middle 
of  the  last  century,  in  the  m6numental  work  of  Louis  Pasteur,  who 
first  demonstrated  the  microscopic  cause  of  diseases  and  devised  an 
effective  method  for  their  prevention.  His  work,  probably  the 
greatest  which  any  one  man  has  ever  done  for  humanity,  finally  led 
him  to  the  epoch-making  and  immortal  assertion :  "  It  is  possible  for 
civilized  man  to  cause  all  contagious  diseases  to  disappear  from  the 
face  of  the  earth." 
