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Modern  Medicine. 
fAm.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\       May,  1915. 
which  is  not  approved  by  a  majority  of  the  people  can  be  enforced. 
As  Dr.  Chaille  has  clearly  stated,  the  important  thing  is  to  convince 
the  people  and  to  mould  public  opinion.  As  soon  as  this  is  done, 
necessary  laws  will  follow  as  a  natural  consequence.  But  with  a 
convinced  and  aroused  public  only  a  minimum  amount  of  legislation 
is  necessary.  Public  opinion  can  accomplish  as  much  as,  if  not  more 
than,  legislation  in  some  lines,  leaving  to  the  law-making  powers  only 
the  necessity  of  enacting,  and  to  the  administrative  officials  the 
necessity  of  enforcing,  so  much  legislation  as  may  be  necessary  to 
make  public  opinion  effective. 
But  there  is  another  and  more  serious  consequence  of  the  enact- 
ment of  public  health  laws  without  the  support  of  public  opinion. 
Not  only  are  laws  so  obtained  generally  ineffective,  but  their  passage 
encourages  the  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  public  that  health  legisla- 
tion is  a  matter  which  is  in  the  hands  of  physicians,  and  that  the 
people  have  no  responsibility  on  this  subject.  It  is  an  axiom  in 
physiology  that  an  unused  function  always  undergoes  atrophy.  The 
more  physicians  relieve  the  people  of  the  responsibility  for  securing 
proper  health  laws,  the  greater  will  be  the  difficulty  in  making  them 
realize  that  they  have  any  responsibility.  We  have,  through  short- 
sightedness in  the  operation  of  free  clinics  in  our  large  cities,  pau- 
perized a  large  proportion  of  the  people.  Let  us  beware  lest  we 
pauperize  them  mentally  by  relieving  them  of  the  responsibility  of 
protecting  themselves  from  disease. 
Not  only  has  the  growth  of  knowledge  altered  the  relations  of 
the  State  and  the  individual,  but  it  has  no  less  radically  altered  the 
professional  relations  between  physicians  and  patients.  The  respon- 
sibility of  the  physician  was  formerly  limited  to  the  individual  pa- 
tient. This  is  no  longer  the  case.  The  present-day  physician  wants 
to  know  not  only  what  is  ailing  his  patient,  but  also  how  his  patient 
acquired  the  disease,  whether  any  other  persons  are  exposed  to 
contagion  from  the  same  source,  whether  the  patient  himself  is  a 
danger  to  his  friends  and  relatives,  and  whether  the  disease  will 
spread  throughout  the  entire  community  or  can  be  confined  to  the 
single  case  in  hand.  He  owes  a  responsibility  not  only  to  his  patient, 
but  to  the  community.  He  is  not  only  the  caretaker  and  medical 
adviser  of  the  sick  ;  he  is  also  the  guardian  and  protector  of  the  well. 
Each  practising  physician  is  or  should  be  a  sanitary  policeman  for 
the  protection  of  the  community  against  contagion.  In  a  few  cases, 
notably  State  boards  of  health  and  a  few  of  our  larger  cities,  men 
